Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One thing Harley misses about his life pre-Site-107, besides the sun, his own apartment, and just generally not being stuck in an unstable shoebox passing through a perpetual time loop, is getting a full night’s sleep. He misses getting seven hours of sweet, uninterrupted sleep in a bed that doesn’t smell like it used to belong to a nursing home. He also kinda misses washing machines and laundry detergent, now that he thinks of it.

It’s not like he was the poster child of having healthy sleeping patterns, quite far from it actually, but ever since he was forced to make do with the cramped closet he called a bedroom, he could get about two hours of restless sleep before he was either shaken awake by a frantic coworker who needed him to get back to the comms station and supervise some easily fixable error, or the lack of difference between the day and night cycle made him wake up on his own. 

Most days he felt well enough to drown his fatigue in one or two cups of gross instant coffee and the more or less healthy rush of adrenaline that came with the job. Two hours of sleep were better than nothing, and at least he didn’t have to share a room with someone else like the guys from maintenance – the pros of being the only person in the Comms Department. On other days, he could barely keep himself awake long enough to make it to the kitchen. He wasn’t exactly worried about it, not as much as he should be, and no one else seemed to notice either. It's simply something he has to learn how to deal with.

When he is woken up by a strange pressure on his chest, he doesn’t think much of it, probably just all the sleep deprivation catching up on him. Harley reaches for his blanket to pull it back up to his chest, but as his hand meets the fabric, he violently flinches. If he was delirious with sleep just mere seconds earlier, he isn’t anymore. Suddenly, he is wide awake.

His entire bed is wet, no, utterly sodden. How he hasn’t noticed it sooner is beyond him.

He sits up, fumbling for the light switch. The lights flicker on slowly, the pervasive glow forcing his eyes shut until they adjust to the sudden change. When he opens them back up again, he doesn’t know whether he should laugh or sob.

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

Right above his head, massive chunks of the ceiling have chipped away, revealing the metal railings and pipe system embedded in the walls. Thick droplets of water drip onto the bed and the floor, drenching his entire room in cold, murky water. He’s glad he barely keeps any of his electronic belongings in here because those would most certainly be ruined by now. Not even the 80s-style alarm clock on his bedside table was spared, the brightness of the numbers on the display wavering until eventually giving out. He couldn’t make out the time, but he knew that it had to be the middle of the night – or at least the middle of the Site’s roughly determined night cycle.

Harley frees himself from the disgustingly soggy blanket and gawkily climbs out of bed. His clothes cling to his body like a heavy fever and the carpet, equally soaked with water as his bed, squelches when he puts his body weight on it – this entire situation is sensory purgatory. 

Shivering, he pulls out his walkie-talkie and tunes into the only channel he can think of at this point.

“Klein? Are you there? Over.” He lets go of the button, watching more of the dodgy water drip from the ceiling right onto his bed.

A beat of silence passes before the sound of static crackles from the speaker.

“Harley? What the fuck are you still doing up? It’s one thirty in the morning. Over,” Klein’s tired voice echoes around the room. He feels bad for waking her up at this hour, and briefly considers playing his late-night call off as an accident. Looking down at the amount of water soaking his duvet, he reconsiders.

“Did you know there are water pipes above my room? Because I didn't and now half of my room is underwater. Over.”

Klein falls silent for a moment, and Harley thinks she must have just turned off her walkie-talkie and went back to sleep. 

“I’ll be down in five with some of the guys from maintenance. Don’t, I don’t know, don't drown in the meantime or something. Over.”

–

“You wanna hear the bad news or the good news first?” Cady Graham, one of the maintenance staff, raises a questioning eyebrow at Harley. Her voice is hoarse, and the bags under her eyes are even more prominent in the bright artificial light of the hallway.

“It’s the middle of the night, for fuck’s sake, just spit it out,” Klein groans, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. She isn’t exactly mad at Harley, it’s not like any of this is his fault, but God knows how little sleep she gets every night, even without having to take care of petty little tasks like this.

“Good news first then,” Cady shrugs. “So, we located the spot where the water seems to be leaking from, and it isn’t as much of a hassle to fix as we initially thought.”

“Thank God,” Harley sighs. 

“Don’t thank anyone yet,” Klein mutters. “What is the bad news?”

“Uhm, it might take us another week to stabilise and fix all of that, so you won’t be able to sleep in here during that time.”

“What?” he sputters. “A week? Where am I–”

Klein cuts him off with a dismissive wave of her hand. “What could possibly take you an entire week to fix one pipe? I thought the leak wasn’t a big hassle to fix?”

Cady sucks in a harsh breath, a few strands of her short, purple-dyed hair falling onto her forehead. “The pipe system up there is quite, well, shit, to be honest. And old. Like, really fucking old. We can’t just climb into the ceiling and start working on it. There are safety protocols we need to adhere to, or else we might mess up the entire pipe system. Speaking of the pipe system, we also have to check for other damages or leaks while we’re at it.”

“Can’t that wait till the next reset?”

“It could, but the recent resets haven’t been what I would call consistent, so we can’t promise that the entire ceiling might not come down the next time. It would be a huge safety hazard to let you sleep in there while all of that is going on, Harley.”

“Great,” Klein sighs, running a hand over her face. “Thank you, Graham. We’ll… we’ll figure something out.”

She gives her a polite nod, which Cady reciprocates before disappearing behind the door of Harley’s room again. 

A maintenance guy whose name he can’t quite recall hands him a warm blanket, and it’s only then that he realises how cold he actually is. He’s still wearing the same clothes he climbed out of bed in because changing felt like the least of his worries, but now the reality of the situation hits him with full force. He is drenched, freezing and bone-tired.

Next to him, Klein sucks her teeth. “Alright, let’s get you some dry clothes first. You’re trembling like a chihuahua standing on a block of ice.” She tugs at the blanket and wraps it around his shoulders, one of her hands gently rubbing along his back. 

Coming from Klein, this gesture is worth as much as a hug, but Harley is still left with a hollow sense of disappointment when the touch is gone. He can’t remember the last time someone touched him just for the sake of it, the last time he was hugged must be even further away.

“And then we’ll see where you can crash for the night. If it comes down to it, you can take my room temporarily. Looks like I won’t be getting much sleep tonight anyway.”

The ghost of Klein’s hand on his shoulder burns, and a pit in his stomach opens. In the confines of his room, he was safe, allowed to take up as much space as he wanted to. But now, it feels as if he had been stripped bare, entirely reliant on others, a burden. Even though everyone means well, he is painfully aware of how much of an inconvenience he is. It’s an inconvenience for the maintenance staff to come down and fix the pipes, it’s an inconvenience for someone to go out of his way to get him a blanket, and it’s an inconvenience for Klein to offer up her room to him. 

Harley is an inconvenience, no matter how desperately he tries not to be.

“Klein, you really don’t have to. I’ll be fine.”

She looks him up and down, apprehension carving even deeper wrinkles into her forehead. “Are you sure? Harley, I don’t want you getting sick. I’d be a lot less on edge if I knew that you were taken care of properly.”

Admittedly, the possibility of getting sick hadn’t even occurred to him up until that point. Being stuck with a cold or a fever while also not having a stable place to stay doesn’t sound like an ideal situation to be in, and he knows he wouldn’t be equipped to deal with that scenario if it came down to it. And yet he is just as unequipped to ask for help without feeling guilty.

“It’s fine.” He tries and fails to be reassuring. “I can handle this on my own. You already have enough shit to do, and I don’t–”

“I know that you could probably handle this on your own just fine. I’m just saying that you don’t have to.” Her gaze softens, the previous sharpness dissipating. “You have people in your corner, Harley.”

“I– thank you. I know, I just don’t want to be in anyone’s way right now.” Harley tugs on a loose thread at the seam of his shirt. “I promise I’ll ask for help if I need it, but I’ll be fine.”

“Alright,” Klein huffs. “But if I catch you sleeping on a couch in the rec room, I’m assigning you a fucking bedside nurse. I swear to God.”

With that, she turns around, already caught up in flagging down another maintenance guy to presumably get more details on the entire process of fixing the pipe system. He stays rooted to the floor, almost docile. It was simple to act like he knew what to do, but actually going through with it is more difficult than initially suspected.

His feet move on their own accord, away from the chaos that is his room and up several flights of stairs – or was it down? – no, it has to be up, because when he comes out of his daze, he finds himself in front of the door to Lancaster’s room. Of course that’s where he’d end up, at Dr. Orion Lancaster’s doorstep in the middle of the night because that’s the only place he can go with an undeniable certainty of never being turned away. For all his stubbornness and irritability, he would never stop caring for Harley, even if it ends up being to his own detriment.

Hesitantly, he lingers. What is he supposed to tell him? Hell, what exactly does he even want from him? A set of spare clothes? A place to stay for the night? Reassurance? Maybe it’s all three. He doesn’t know how to ask for any of it.

Biting the inside of his cheek, he knocks; once, twice, thrice, until he hears rustling coming from the inside. 

“Uhm, come in. The door is unlocked,” a hesitant voice calls out to him, slightly muffled.

Harley doesn’t give himself time to reconsider and quickly pushes open the door, all but stumbling into the room. In the process of getting in, he bumps into the side table right at the entrance with his bad leg and lets out a strangled stream of curses.

“Fuck– shit, sorry!”

“Harley?” Lancaster sits cross-legged on his ratty office chair at his desk, glasses askew and hair dishevelled. The only source of light is the little banker’s lamp next to him, which gives Harley a slightly obscured view of the scattered papers and alphabetically assorted manilla folders spread out all over the table. 

“Hi,” Harley replies placidly, his hands now hanging dumb and heavy at his sides, the blanket still loosely draped over his shoulders.

Lancaster tosses aside the folder he was holding and turns in his chair to look at him fully. “Harley, is everything alright? It’s the middle of the night–” 

His face falls, all his facial muscles going slack in an instant. There’s something about the way Lancaster looks at him when he’s worried; the subtle furrow of his brows, the wide-eyed stare, and the tight pinch of his lips. It’s a picture of honest, unbridled concern, and Harley doesn’t know how to handle it.

“Shit, you’re soaked. Are you–” He doesn’t bother to finish his sentence because he is too busy trying not to fall on his face as he, very ungainly, gets up from his chair and crosses the room to get to Harley. 

“I’m fine,” he assures. “Mostly fine. I almost got waterboarded by some burst pipe earlier.”

“What?” Lancaster stops dead in his tracks right in front of Harley. His eyebrows are raised comically high, and it becomes glaringly obvious that he’s torn between showing concern or amusement. 

“A pipe burst above my room, and now it’s flooded. And I’m pretty much out of a place to sleep for like a week.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m dead serious. Just my luck, am I right?” Harley comments sardonically.

“Oh, Harley,” he shakes his head exasperatedly, as if he had been the person that woke up to his room in a state of disarray. “That’s, uhm…”

“Unfortunate?”

“I was going for an expletive, but that works, too.” Lancaster smiles at him, his cheeks flushing with the same awkwardness he always turns to when he’s unsure how to proceed. “Do you, you know, need spare clothes or something? I can’t imagine that this is comfortable.”

Harley relaxes, just a little, relieved he didn’t have to be the one to ask. “Please.”

Without another word, Lancaster is already on the move to rummage through his closet, sifting through a surprisingly wide range of clothes. “Are you alright with some sweats and a shirt? It’s probably gonna be a bit too big for you – well, the sweats could probably be a little short for you because you’re a literal giant – but I think we can make that work.”

He pulls out a pair of black sweatpants and a beige, long-sleeved shirt, deliberately avoiding the stack of neatly folded grey pyjamas with the Foundation logo boldly stitched onto them. Harley remembers all of them being given a box of standardised living essentials when they started working at Site-107 – standardised loungewear, work clothes, pyjamas, and even toiletries – and to this day he is yet to see anyone using them. His box is still where it was the day he got it, on top of his closet.

“This okay?” Lancaster appears in front of him, a heap of clothes in his hands.

“You’re a fucking lifesaver, Lanc.” Harley gladly takes the offered clothes from him, ignoring the way his skin tingles when Lancaster’s fingers accidentally brush against his wrist.

“Oh, uhm, did they already give you a different room to stay in, or…” he trails off, looking at him expectantly.

That question had to come up eventually, Harley is painfully aware of that, but he had kind of hoped to delay it for at least another five minutes, or at least to a point in time when he wasn’t a dripping mess. Regrettably, he feels none the wiser than he did thirty minutes ago.

He swallows thickly. “There’s not really anywhere else to go, it’s not like the site is big enough to give everyone their own room and then some. Initially, I considered sleeping in the rec room. Klein shut that down and told me if she saw me sleeping on the couch in the morning, she would give me a bedside nurse.”

“Yikes.”

“Yikes indeed.” He snorts bitterly. “But yeah, other than that I don’t have a lot of other options, so…”

The metaphorical lightbulb above Lancaster’s head shines a bright yellow as he starts understanding what Harley is trying to ask of him. “Oh, you can stay here if you want! There’s enough space for the both of us. Probably.”

“Are you okay with me staying here? I don’t want to–”

“Harley, I don’t mind, I promise. It’s not like you’re asking to move in or something.” He chuckles, an awkward smile on his lips. “We can probably figure out a sleeping schedule, so we can both get some hours of sleep during the night. I was planning on getting some work done anyway, which means you can take the bed–”

“You don’t need to give up your bed for me. If you have a spare pillow, I can just sleep here.” He gestures towards the space on the floor next to him in a questionable attempt to keep his cool.

“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor, Harley. Your leg–”

“Lanc, It's not like I'm made of glass. Sleeping on the floor won’t kill me.” He lets his head fall onto the 

“I can’t with good conscience let you do that. Please just take the bed.”

“And I can’t with good conscience take over your room when we both know that you don’t get nearly as much sleep as you should.”

Lancaster huffs defiantly. “I’ll be fine. But you– you almost had your entire ceiling collapse on you–”

“A bit dramatic.”

“Whatever! You show up at my door in the middle of the room, soaked to the bone and without somewhere to sleep for the next few days, and you expect me to be okay with letting you sleep on the floor?” 

“I just need a room that isn’t a literal indoor bog! Sleeping in a chair would be a better option for all I care.”

“But you don’t have to–”

“Look,” he cuts him off, without malice. “I’m going to the bathroom to change into something less wet, and when I come back out, I’ll steal a pillow off your bed and make myself comfortable on the floor. The only thing I want is to get some sleep without accidentally drowning, alright?”

“Harley–” Lancaster tries to argue, but he’s already halfway across the room and not in the mood to discuss things any further.

Closing the bathroom door behind him, he sucks in a harsh breath for what feels like the first time in ages. His situation was, well, less than ideal, even though it was a mess of his own making. Leave it to him to explicitly seek out the man he’s been not so secretly crushing on for the last year or so to ask for a place to stay.

He takes his time getting dressed, hanging the still soaked clothes up in the shower to dry as well as the cramped, stuffy bathroom would allow. There’s a lot of stuff lying around practically everywhere, and Harley almost knocks half of the toiletries off the counter as he tries to move around.

After finishing up the last steps of his second, panic-induced nighttime routine, he tentatively cracks open the door to find Lancaster sitting crouched over his desk again. He musters up enough feigned confidence to walk back into the bedroom, purposefully ignoring the fact that the bedspread looks a lot neater than it had just ten minutes ago.

Without wasting a moment, he grabs one of Lancaster’s pillows and tosses it onto the floor, his body following soon after. It’s admittedly not the most comfortable position to sleep in, but he is not about to admit that. 

A sigh echoes around the room. “You’re set on going through with that, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely. Good night, Lanc!” 

Harley hears him mutter the word ‘prick’ under his breath, but then, much softer, “Good night, Harley.”

Chapter Text

Harley hates to admit it, but Lancaster was right: Sleeping on the floor was a shit idea. 

When he wakes up, startled by the electronic beeping of his phone's alarm clock, he needs a moment to fully grasp where exactly he is and why. He's still lying on the floor of Lancaster's room, the cold tiles pressing against the exposed skin of his back where his shirt must have ridden up during the night. It's uncomfortable, but momentarily distracts him from the surging ache of his limbs that he’s becoming more and more aware of the longer he’s lucid.

Moving hurts, and he doesn't even want to think about tackling the task that is sitting up, or God forbid even standing. He tries turning to the side, and immediately aborts that mission when a sharp flash of pain shoots through his spine. And to think that he used to spend months sleeping in some mangy bedroll on the floor when he was younger.

Gritting his teeth, he pushes himself up onto his arms. It's easier than expected, and yet he recognises those familiar twinges and aches he managed to ignore for so long. Harley is aware that he should have gotten this checked out years ago when he first noticed the stiffness in his joints, and all the mornings he was rendered completely immobile for at least one hour whenever he slept a little weirdly. It will pass, he told himself. But the only thing that passed was time, his pain stayed, festering, calcifying the fibre of his joints.

He stretches his legs and rolls his shoulders, trying his hardest not to flinch every time something pops back into place – or out of place, he genuinely has no idea what his body is supposed to feel like. It’s all just blurry memories of a reality he hasn’t remembered for ages now.

His eyes scan the room for any sign of Lancaster, and when that search comes up empty, he finally feels safe enough to let out a strangled sob. It’s pathetic, really. He should be used to the pain by now, the hours spent rigid and hurting. And yet it still knocks him out every single time. Harley misses his old self; he misses running until his lungs gave out and not his legs, he misses being able to take showers without worrying about whether they are cold or hot enough to give him joint pain, and he misses feeling like an actual person rather than something that needs to be handled carefully in fear of it maybe breaking at the slightest touch.

“Fuck,” he groans as he reaches out to massage the muscles under the marred skin of his left leg, but he stops himself mid-movement.

There’s a thick blanket draped over the lower half of his torso, and he distinctively remembers it not being there when he fell asleep. Much to his surprise, he also finds a small pillow propped under his bad leg, elevating it just enough to get the blood flowing properly. It’s something his physical therapist suggested doing after particularly draining days, but Harley never really seemed to have enough energy to follow through with it. 

Regrettably, his thoughts immediately wander to Lancaster. He imagines him waiting until he fell asleep to carefully push the pillow under his leg and drape the duvet over him, so he wouldn’t be cold during the night. Because of course, Lancaster would know that he runs cold in the night and that his leg would give grief in the morning. Knowing Harley seemed to be his second nature more often than not.

And that doesn’t stop at just a pillow and a blanket. Next to him, meticulously placed on a metal plate, he finds a note, a bottle of water, and a small plastic box. Harley groans, fond, and swiftly plucks the note away off the floor.

Hope you slept well!

Here are some painkillers and water in case you didn’t.

Talk at lunch?

– Lanc

Harley silently smiles to himself and folds the note back up, tucking it into the pockets of his sweatpants. He’s glad Lancaster isn’t here to see him, donning a dumb, wide smile after closely averting a mental breakdown. It’s silly that one tiny, thoughtful gesture from him can change his mood like the moon does the tides. There’s entirely too much to unpack, so he decides to just leave the box containing his unwelcome feelings taped shut until he’s ready.

He takes the little pill box in his hands and opens it. Inside it are two pills of Advil and another note, which reads:

I told you so :)

Smug fucking bastard.

–

After what drags out to feel like an eternity, Harley ends up sitting in his Comms room, sifting through a pile of files someone left on his desk earlier. By the time the painkillers kicked in, he had already made a quick trip to his room to retrieve some clothes and other stuff he deemed important enough to save from the wrath of maintenance. It’s almost noon when he finally gets some actual work done, and his entire body still feels like it had been shock-frosted and then repeatedly bashed against a kitchen counter, but he doesn’t have the urge to keel over in pain every five minutes, so he takes that as a win.

“Alright, that’s all for now, Overwatch Command. This is Dr. Harley at Site-107, over and–”

The door opens abruptly and Klein barges into the room unannounced, and slightly startled when she spots him. “Oh, Harley! Good to see you! Sorry for, uhm, coming in like this, I didn’t think you’d be in here.”

Harley raises his eyebrows at her. “Who else did you expect to find in here? All the other guys in the Comms Department?”

“Well, someone’s in a good mood today,” she comments sarcastically, more humour in her voice than spite. “No, I was just getting a little worried because you were MIA when I came to check in on you earlier and no one seemed to have heard from you since this morning.”

“Come on, Klein, it’s not like anyone noticed I was gone.”

“I did. And so did Love and Raddagher.” She shifts from one foot to another. “I tried contacting you more than once, and you didn’t reply. Of course, I noticed you were gone. You can’t just run off and expect people to forget about you as soon as you’re out of sight. That’s not a fair thing to ask of the people who give a shit about you.”

“Oh, sorry.” Suddenly, he’s brought back to feeling like a little child at school, scolded for reasons he didn’t understand. Klein means well, she always does, even if her actions don’t really reflect that sometimes, but occasionally her words are too sharp and his skin is too soft to handle them. “I didn’t take my walkie-talkie with me, I should probably–”

“It’s fine. I just– I just don’t want to see you do something dumb, alright?”  Klein crosses her arms in front of her chest, fingers anxiously digging into her ribcage. “You wanna tell me where you slept tonight, or do I have to find another thing to get mad at?”

For a moment, he considers lying to her. Klein is far too observant, and Harley just knows that she is aware of his not-so-secret crush on Lancaster. Telling her that his first instinct was to seek out his bedroom would give her a completely wrong impression of what actually went on between them.

“I promise I didn’t sleep on the couch in the rec room.”

“Did you sleep at all?”

“I pretty much woke up like two hours ago, and that without another pipe mishap.”

“Harley.”

“Alright fine. Lanc let me sleep in his room for the night.” There goes his resolve.

Klein tries, and fails, keeping her composure, but Harley recognises the telltale signs of a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. “Ah.”

“It’s not what you think it is.”

“Oh really?” she counters, a knowing grin on her lips. “Pray tell, what do I think it is?”

“We did not sleep in the same bed,” he explains unhelpfully. He doesn’t mention that he actually didn’t sleep in a bed at all, for everyone’s sake.

“Sure,” she drags the word out impossibly long, and if Harley had the option to get swallowed whole by the ground right at that moment, he would have taken it without hesitation.

“Klein, please–”

“Hey, I’m not judging you, Harley!” Klein throws her hands up in defence. “I really don’t care about what you two do, as long as you’re aware that–

“I promise you nothing’s going on between us,” Harley groans, rubbing his eyes. “We’re just… friends. He would tell you the same.”

Harley pauses. Would Lancaster tell her the same? Or would he talk his way out of having to answer? It’s something he was scarily good at, winding himself out of the clutch of a conversation. He doesn’t do it maliciously, at least Harley doesn’t think so, but it seems to happen more often than not. They are both aware of it, and yet neither of them has brought it up. 

All that to say, Harley wasn’t sure if Lancaster considered him a friend. It feels silly, of course. After everything they went through together, good and horrifically bad, they should think of each other as friends, right? Harley surely sees him as a friend. It’s hard to say the same for Lancaster, who just tells everyone enough to keep them from digging deeper. The rest gets compartmentalised and neatly packed into the back of his mental closet until he’s ready to tackle it himself. Harley couldn’t accurately explain Lancaster’s opinion of him, even with a gun pointed at his head.

“Fine, I’ll leave it.” Klein still has that god-awful tone in her voice. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay, didn’t mean to pry.”

“Thank you… I promise everything’s fine.”

A glint passes over Klein’s eyes, and Harley knows that she doesn’t entirely believe him. She doesn’t question him further, though. “Okay, just, you know, keep it that way. Don’t do anything stupid just for the sake of having done something. And please just fucking talk to someone if shit goes wrong, alright?”

“Understood.” Harley gives her a joking salute, and she rolls her eyes, fondly.

“God, why do I put up with this.”

–

When noon rolls around, Harley barely remembers that he has yet to eat anything at all today. After the rather unpleasant morning and the awkward conversation with Klein, he just kind of forgot. It’s a nasty habit, and he hates it, but there’s not much he can do about it. He’s not exactly worried about it though, it’s not an eating disorder, more of a ‘memory thing’ – a small, nagging reminder of the fact that he, in fact, is not neurotypical. He tends to forget to eat when he gets too involved in the thing he’s currently working on, and it only became somewhat of a problem when he started working on a set schedule. 

Being stuck in Site-107 hasn’t done him any good either. It wasn’t easy navigating his day-to-day life even with his ADHD meds, but it was even harder doing it without them, all while being stuck. Harley knows he can’t blame the former on anyone else but him. He’s the one who just chucked a bottle of Adderall into his bag without checking how much was still in it, considering that it had been quite some time since he got a refill. 

Turns out you don’t really get far with three measly pills. During the first two resets, he tried to save them for when things got too overwhelming, days when his brain felt like a scattered and scrambled reflection of what it was supposed to look like. Of course, that didn’t work. That’s not how any of this works. Since then, he tried multiple things: stopping cold turkey and just letting the bottle of meds gather dust on his desk, taking them all in the first three days, or taking them all right before the reset. All those options didn’t do shit. He felt exhausted, anxious, and even more forgetful than he was before. 

He thinks about talking to Lancaster about it, but in the end, he never does. There are more pressing things to take care of, more important problems to solve. And Harley most certainly isn’t one of them, so he stays quiet.

Recalling Lancaster’s offer to talk over dinner, Harley forces himself out of his chair and down to the therapy wing. He hates the therapy wing. It’s supposed to be one of the nicer parts of the site – the Foundation spent a lot of money to make it look presentable, after all – and yet it feels like the complete opposite. The lights in the corridors are too bright, the people too formal, and the smell is harsh and antiseptic. There’s only one thing in the entire wing that Harley would call nice, and that’s Lancaster’s office. A bright and open room with large wooden cabinets, an old, well-loved sofa and armchairs, plants, and, of course, Lancaster. It’s nothing like Chappel’s office; sanitised and painfully minimalist. Maybe he’s biased because it’s Chappel, and he doesn’t like the guy all that much, or maybe he’s blinded by the fact that Chappel, no matter how hard he tries, will never be Lancaster. 

The door to Lancaster’s office is left slightly ajar, just a bit, just enough to hear someone rummage around the filing cabinets, accompanied by the soft sound of humming. Well, a hummed version of Mr. Blue Sky, to be exact. Harley carefully pushes open the door a little further to find Lancaster with his back turned towards him. He’s sorting through a heap of overflowing manilla folders, completely lost in thought. No sign that he’s even remotely aware of Harley’s presence.

Harley creeps up behind him, a hint of amusement on his face.“Warming up for karaoke night?”

“Jesus Christ!” Lancaster flinches, a little too violently for his liking. He whips his head around, and Harley can pinpoint the exact moment he realises it’s him. Dramatically, he clutches at the fabric of his shirt, right where his heart should be. “Has no one ever taught you how to knock?” he groans.

“Sorry for that, I promise I didn’t mean to scare you,” he snorts.

A subtle, rose-coloured blush reaches Lancaster’s ears. It’s terribly endearing, and Harley almost wants to tease him about it. Almost.

“Ah, well, sorry. I guess I’m just a little… on edge lately. It’s not your fault, don’t worry about it.” 

Exactly that’s what makes Harley worried about it. Coming from Lancaster, ‘don’t worry about it’ roughly translates to ‘there is something very wrong, but I’m gonna pretend it’s alright because I don’t want to have to worry about you worrying about me’. He claimed there was nothing to worry about minutes before he pulled out a scalpel and lunged at Harley, and he’d probably say the same before going into cardiac arrest. Maybe it’s the leftover bitterness that still leaves a sour taste in his mouth, but he doesn’t believe him one bit.

“Lanc…” His shoulders tense involuntarily. “Don’t do that.”

He pauses to look up at him, visibly taken aback. “Do what?”

“Not telling me when something is bothering you. Shutting me out.”

There’s a sharp beat of silence between them as Lancaster tries to haggle for an answer. Opening up isn’t easy for him, Harley is more than aware of that. Being raised in a clear-cut conservative family that valued their public image over the comfort of their own child left marks on Lancaster, he couldn’t even begin to properly unpack, and Harley wouldn’t be the one to force him to do so. It isn’t his place. He only wishes that he’d at least trust him enough to talk to him when he needs something. Or someone.

“It’s not… I’m not hiding anything from you. I promise.” Lancaster tosses the folders he’s holding onto the flimsy side table and closes his eyes, his back resting against the cold metal of the filing cabinet. “Everything’s just been a little too much lately, and I don’t know… I guess I don’t know what exactly I’m supposed to be working towards. Maybe I’m a little, well, overwhelmed right now.” He says the word ‘overwhelmed’ as if the entire concept is foreign to him.

“Oh,” Harley says, dumbly and on impulse. It’s the only thing he knows to say at that moment. He wasn’t expecting Lancaster to actually be honest with him for once, so he feels staggeringly unprepared to give him any sort of helpful advice. Ironic, considering he has practically been begging him to open up. 

Lancaster snorts. “Yeah, that sums it up pretty well.” He chews on the inside of his cheek, gaze fixated on the carpet. “Sorry for putting that on you. It’s not your job–”

“No, no, no, Lanc, don’t say that–” He moves forward, and his hands instinctively find Lancaster’s shoulders. 

They both freeze.

Physical contact has always been a gray area between them. 

Harley craves it, seeking it out whenever he can, although he would never admit it. It sounds childish to say, but he is convinced that a good hug could fix the majority of his problems, most certainly the massive case of touch starvation he got going on.

Lancaster, on the other hand, barely ever touches anyone. He isn’t completely opposed to physical contact, Harley knows that. They used to share friendly touches and hugs quite often before everything went to shit. Even though all of those gestures were initiated by Harley, he never seemed to be opposed to them. Now, he doesn’t remember the last time anyone touched Lancaster without hurting him. 

God, how could he have never noticed that before?

“Harley…” Lancaster gently puts his hands on Harley’s arms, which are still resting on his shoulders. There’s no alternative dimension where this wouldn’t be extremely awkward. “I’m–”

In a spur-of-the-moment decision to make things even worse, Harley shakes him off and pulls him into a hug. Lancaster lets out a surprised yelp, but doesn’t push him away. He stays stock-still as Harley wraps his arms around him in an ungraceful attempt at providing comfort the only way he knows how.

I fucked it, Harley thinks when Lancaster doesn’t ease into his touch as easily as he expected, I fucked it up and now everything is going to be–

“Hmph,” Lancaster breathes into the fabric of Harley’s shirt before finally reciprocating the hug. He gingerly embraces him, hands resting at the small of his back with a featherlight touch. The tension in his body doesn’t subside entirely, but Lancaster doesn’t seem to hate it either. 

If he’s being brutally honest with himself, he’d have to admit that everything about this is incredibly selfish. This won’t fix anything in the long run, he doesn’t have any encouraging words to say, and he isn’t even sure if Lancaster enjoys being touched right now, or if he’s just tolerating it – tolerating him. But his familiar warmth pressed against Harley’s body makes him realise how much he missed this, how much he missed Lancaster. 

He allows himself to be selfish this once.

Harley tentatively runs a hand across his shoulder blades, tracing mindless circles into his back. His mom used to do the same for him as a child, and it has become somewhat of a habit. Lancaster shudders under his touch, and Harley makes sure to commit that reaction to his memory.

“Ah, uhm, did you want to grab lunch? Because I’m starving.” Lancaster breaks the comfortable silence before pulling away ever so slightly. The hug lasted longer than a completely platonic gesture between two colleagues-turned-friends probably should have lasted. Neither of them mention that though.

They are still touching, Harley notices. His hand is loosely wrapped around Lancaster’s upper arm. He doesn’t make an effort to let go.

“Absolutely.”

–

Twenty minutes later, they squeeze into the way-too-small sofa in the rec room, bickering while balancing two bowls of chicken noodle soup on their knees. Harley lets Lancaster drone on about Psychology’s new staff protocols and work rota, and how moody Chappel looked this morning. Not having to be the one to keep the conversation going is a welcome change of pace for once. There isn’t much listening he gets to do in the Comms Department.

At some point during Lancaster’s monologue, he must have shifted in his seat because his thigh is pressing firmly into Harley’s. It’s the longest casual contact they had in ages.

“Oh yeah, by the way,” Lancaster perks up, unceremoniously slurping his noodles. “How’s the leg?”

“Ugh,” Harley gives him a non-committal grunt. “As of now, still pretty numb. The painkillers did all the heavy lifting this morning.” He chews. “Thanks for that.”

He doesn’t only thank him for the medicine.

A lopsided grin tugs at Lancaster’s lips. “I told you sleeping on the floor wouldn’t be good for you.”

“Yes, yes, you did tell me that. And now I’m reaping the consequences.” He rolls his eyes. “I still have to look for somewhere to sleep tonight, so I learned my lesson and–”

“You’re welcome to stay in my room until yours is fixed.” The answer tumbles out of Lancaster’s mouth quicker than expected, with a sense of conviction that surprises both of them.

“No offence, but didn’t you just hit me with the ‘I told you so’ for sleeping on the floor? I don’t think that situation is bound to get better any time soon. I couldn’t do that to my joints for another night.”

Lancaster pinches the bridge of his nose, looking thoroughly done with Harley’s bullshit. “Or you could be sensible for once and accept when someone is offering you their bed.”

“I won’t–” Harley is just about to argue against that suggestion, but Lancaster shushes him.

“Nope, we’re not arguing over this now. It’s the middle of the day, and I’m not in the mood for that right now.” He leans closer, close enough for his breath to ghost over Harley’s collarbone. “You’re staying in my room tonight, and if you’re still insistent on not taking the bed, we’ll figure something out. Alright?”

“Fine,” he grumbles, peeved. And yet, there’s still no malice behind it.

–

Evening arrives and everything is far from fine. 

They are both sitting on the floor, still none the wiser than they were during lunch. Harley’s back is pressed against the bed frame and his long legs are stretched out in front of him, ankles crossed. Across from him, Lancaster’s legs are drawn to his chest, head resting on his knees. He’s looking at Harley through his horn-rimmed glasses inquisitively, searching for an answer in the planes of his face. 

“You’re one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever met,” he yawns, exhaustion pulling at his features. 

“Takes one to know one,” Harley retorts childishly.

“Please take the bed.”

“No.”

“Harley, please–”

“When was the last time you got more than three hours of sleep in an actual bed?” he interrupts, nudging him with his foot. “Because it wasn’t tonight. I heard you sneaking out in the morning.”

Lancaster’s frown deepens. “I– look, is this really relevant now? This has nothing to do with my unhealthy sleeping habits.”

Harley sighs, exasperated. “It’s pretty relevant to me! I’m literally part of the reason you’re not getting any sleep right now.”

“You’re not– trust me, it’s not that easy,” he laughs bitterly, biting at the skin around his nails. There’s something he isn’t telling him. “I wouldn’t have asked you to stay if that was the case.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Lancaster flinches. Shit, that came out way sharper than he had intended. “Orion, wait, I’m sorry–”

“Don’t be. You’re frustrated, I get it.” He hugs his legs tighter. “I just don’t… I just don’t want you to think I’m, well, incompetent.”

A familiar feeling lodges itself between his ribs, burrowing its way into the tissue of his lungs. He aches. “I think you’re a lot of things, but incompetent isn’t one of them.”

It was a little too honest, and he knows it. That sentence alone has just laid all his feelings out on the table, allowing Lancaster to perform a slow, gruelling autopsy of whatever he may find inside his head.

“Oh,” is the only thing that comes out of his mouth before swallowing down the lump in his throat. “That’s… thank you, Ed. I– ugh, I’m being overly dramatic again.” 

“It’s the theatre kid in you,” Harley whispers before he can stop himself, and is almost immediately greeted by a pillow being flung right at his face.

“Shut up,” Lancaster mirrors his grin. “You’re never letting that shit go, are you?”

“Nope. And neither am I letting you change the topic after you just accused me of being able to think of you as incompetent.” He cradles the pillow in his lap. “Go on, talk to me.”

Biting his lip, Lancaster nods. “I don’t think I’ve slept more than two hours each night ever since the shift started. I am exhausted, but I just can’t bring myself to fall asleep.” 

Harley blinks at him. It isn’t exactly what he was expecting. “Two hours? That’s–”

“Bad. I know.”

“No, that’s pretty fucking unhealthy. Can’t you, I don’t know, die from that at some point? You have to talk to Medical about this, Orion.”

Lancaster heaves a long-suffering sigh. “They won’t be able to tell me anything I don’t already know, Harley.”

“Huh?”

“I’m a diagnosed insomniac.”

“You never told me about that,” he replies dumbly.

“I never told anyone about that.” He gives him a mirthless laugh. “It’s embarrassing. And not exactly one of our biggest problems currently.”

“How– Lanc, how is not being able to sleep supposed to be embarrassing? There’s nothing you can do about that.”

“I’m a psychologist. I’m supposed to have my shit together! How am I supposed to be taken seriously if I can’t even deal with my own problems?” 

It feels a little comical how every argument they have seems to stem from their mutual inability to take care of themselves. Maybe that’s why they would always come crawling back to each other in the end – misery loves company.

“No one expects you to have your shit together. We’re all fucked–” That much for trying to be optimistic. “Wait, no. We’re all in a fucked up spot. No one expects you to function without a hitch. It’s a miracle you can even still hold yourself upright after that much sleep deprivation.”

“But I shouldn’t–”

“I’m proud of you,” Harley blurts almost involuntarily. Might as well chuck six feet of dirt into the grave he was digging for himself. “Not because I think it’s particularly healthy to keep going like this without asking for help, but I’m really… glad you told me about it.”

A wry smile materialises on Lancaster’s lips. “Thank you. I mean that. And for what it’s worth, I’m also proud of you. You’re doing a lot better.”

It’s hard not to bask in the compliment when Lancaster says it with so much affection, so Harley just nods, hoping he will understand.

“Uhm, you mentioned that you only started sleeping that little after the shift started, right?”

“...yes?”

“Was it better before? Maybe we can figure something out. Together.”

Lancaster looks away abruptly, eyes pinched shut.

Most definitely the wrong thing to say, Harley cringes.

“You have to promise you won’t laugh at me.” 

Harley cocks an eyebrow. “Pinky promise.”

“I'm being serious.”

“So am I!”

“Alright, fine… uhm, so meds never properly worked for me, you know? They only helped temporarily, and I felt even worse than before. Couldn't have afforded them at that time anyway.” He plucked an imaginary piece of lint off his sweater. “But when I… slept over at a friend's apartment for a few days, she gave me one of those weighted blankets, and it worked like a charm. It didn't fix my insomnia, that’s not how it works, but my sleeping schedule thanked me for it.” 

Lancaster sighs, his fingers rubbing shapes into the meat of his calves. He looks like he’s about to fall into himself like a house of cards.

“When I moved into my first apartment, that friend gave me hers as a house-warming gift, and I rarely sleep without it. It’s pretty fucking heavy, and I don’t think a lot of people get what it’s for. One of my exes tried to sling it over his shoulders once, and he almost landed face-first on the floor.” He smiles to himself at the memory. “I try to keep my nights spent at the site to a minimum, so I never thought about getting another one for my room here. That came to bite me in the ass, I guess.”

“You couldn’t have known that.”

“Yeah, no one could have.” Lancaster looks at him with tired eyes. “It just sucks feeling this… useless. There’s nothing I can do about any of this.”

The last sentence makes something come loose inside Harley’s brain. “Do you think someone holding you would help?”

“Sorry?” he sputters.

“I mean, well, the reason why weighted blankets help you sleep better is that they use deep-pressure stimulation to boost the production of serotonin and melatonin, which is very similar to the effects of, you know, a hug. Or being held. Same thing.” 

Lancaster goes rigid, staring forward like a deer in the headlights. Immediately, Harley regrets having ever opened his mouth. Of course, offering to hold someone while they fall asleep wasn’t exactly a very casual thing to offer, especially not if there’s a very high chance that your feelings for said person aren’t strictly platonic. For some reason, asking him just felt right

“It would solve the bed issue, too. We could just… share?” Now he was just making things worse. “Not that I’m forcing you to sleep in the same bed, I just thought–”

“Harley,” His expression grows softer, almost cocky. “Honestly, I’d like that. If that’s what it takes to keep you from sleeping on the floor…”

“I fucking hate you.”

“Sure, that’s why you literally just suggested we sleep together.” As soon as the words leave his mouth, he pales. “Not like that–”

–

They sit together for another thirty minutes, dragging out the time before the inevitable awkwardness that’s bound to ensue once they actually get down to the technicality of sharing a bed. When their conversation dies down, and they yawn more often than they laugh, Harley excuses himself to take a shower and get ready.

He turns on the tap, letting the water run until the steam triggers the exhaust fan. His skin burns when the stream of water touches it, but he doesn’t even flinch – he doesn’t remember a time when it didn’t. It doesn’t help that he has to resort to using Lancaster’s shower gel, because, of course, he hadn’t thought about running to his room to grab his own.

Jasmine and eucalyptus isn’t half bad.

Wiping away the condensation from the mirror, Harley inspects himself in the mirror meticulously, shirtless and still dripping wet. He never thought he was much to look at. Ever since he started working for the Foundation, he didn’t exactly have a lot of time to properly take care of himself, and his occasional alcoholic tendencies certainly didn’t help. 

He frowns at the man looking back at him. His face is tired and strained, hardened by years of monotonous office work and the unhealthy diet that came with it. A faint scar runs from his upper lip down to his chin. It’s barely visible now, just a small hyperpigmented line you can’t even see if you aren’t face-to-face with him. He wonders if Lancaster ever noticed it.

Harley’s hand drifts to his chest, down to his stomach and across his side. He is all bones and hollow remains of muscles, a cagey frame with a soft middle. His PT regimen had been demanding, but he never quite managed to regain his form from before getting shot. 

He used to be a swimmer.

His eyes focus on the twin scars on his chest, pronounced lines underneath his pecs. He smiles a little as his fingers trace along the raised skin. Not everything’s hopeless.

When he comes out of the bathroom, Lancaster is already sitting on the bed, dressed in a washed-out pyjama that looks like he had it for quite some time now. He is leafing through some weird lifestyle magazine he most definitely stole from the media cupboard in the rec room, and doesn’t even seem to notice when Harley comes into the room.

“Interesting read?”

“Yes, I do occasionally enjoy embracing my inner middle-aged woman by reading about the ‘thirteen most refreshing summer recipes to bring the spark back into your marriage’. It really resonates with me,” Lancaster tosses the paper to the floor and rolls his shoulders. “Used up all the hot water for the day?”

“God, no wonder your marriage lost its spark…”

“My hypothetical marriage is still alive and well, thank you very much. We’re just going through a rough patch.”

“Mhm,” Harley plops onto the bed next to him. “That’s why you’re inviting strangers to sleep with you in bed.”

“You’re hardly a stranger. Strange, yes. But I think we’re past the strangers stage by now.” 

Harley feels his cheeks grow warm. “I would hope so.”

“So,” Lancaster begins, chewing his lower lip. “How do you want to do this?”

“You’re making this sound way more serious than it actually is.” A blatant lie. “Hold on…” 

He shifts fully onto the bed, taking up more than a good half of it. It’s way smaller than he had anticipated, and suddenly he’s rethinking this entire decision. The whole time, Lancaster blinks at him like he just randomly appeared in his bed. 

“Come on.” Harley pats the empty space beside him.

With a huff, Lancaster takes off his glasses and puts them on the side table. His face looks disproportionate without them, almost jumbled. He doesn’t give Harley any time to adjust before lying down right next to him, shoulders touching.

They look at each other for a moment too long. If Harley was a braver man, he would have probably spilt his guts right then and there.

But sadly, Harley is a damn pussy.

“Uhm, did– do you, I–” he stammers. 

“Ed, are you actually okay with this? Because now is the perfect time for me to get out and sleep in my office or something.” His body yells at him to get out, but he knows that he was in too deep as soon as he laid down next to him.

“No, no, I promise this is fine.” Harley props himself up on his arms. “It’s just… it’s been some time since I’ve shared a bed with someone else, and I don’t want to make this weird.”

He conveniently leaves out the cuddling part.

“We’ve been friends for years now, I don’t think sharing a bed and… hugging is not gonna make things awkward.”

“Alright,” he replies, drawing out the last syllable for an uncomfortably long amount of time. “Neat.” 

“Neat.”

“Neat.” Totally not awkward.

He scoots to the side and awkwardly opens his arms. Lancaster takes the hint and slowly turns around, allowing Harley to wrap his arms around him.

“Is this okay?” he asks quietly, feeling as Lancaster hesitantly eases into his touch.

“Mhm,” he hums. “Can you, uhm, can you maybe–” 

Lancaster squirms a little, body pressing even firmer into Harley’s chest. He takes that as a sign to hug him even tighter, even though that makes it even more difficult to ignore his heart going haywire inside his chest.

Yeah, this was not gonna end well for him.

“Thank you,” Lancaster mumbles drowsily – casually, as if this is the most normal thing in the world. “Good night Harley.”

“Good night Lanc.”

Chapter Text

There’s a moment of shock when he wakes up with his face buried in the crook of Lancaster’s neck. The man next to him is still asleep, his chest rising and falling in even breaths. Tousled curls stick to his cheek and forehead, and Harley tries to resist brushing them back in place. Not that he can do so without startling him awake, both of his arms are trapped. One is lodged between the mattress and Lancaster’s waist, while the other is kept in place by something – someone – clutching it to their chest with a finger on his wrist.

Someone is holding his hand. Lancaster is holding his hand. 

He pointedly does not think about the finger ghosting over his wrist.

But of course, that’s not the only thing he notices. Instead of the polite pose they fell asleep in the night before, Harley’s lying half on top of him now, bodies pressed together tightly and legs in a tangled mess. Every point of contact makes his skin hum with a sensation he hasn’t felt in ages.

Harley thanks every supernatural being there is that Lancaster isn’t awake yet. His sleep-heavy brain would not have been able to coach him through finding an appropriate way to talk himself out of this situation.

With careful movements, he tries to disentangle himself from Lancaster. A muscle in his bad leg twitches uncomfortably when he pulls back from it, just enough to make him flinch. 

“Hmph,” Lancaster stirs in his arms. “Harley?”

The grip around his hand loosens, and Harley takes this as a sign to let go of him, albeit a little begrudgingly. 

Lancaster’s touch lingers on his skin, and he thinks that feeling alone rips something loose inside of him, an old wound reopening years after the initial cut. He doesn’t think about who is holding the metaphorical knife in that scenario.

“Morning,” he yawns, playing it casual. As causal as he can – which admittedly isn’t a lot.

“G’morning,” Lancaster replies, eyes still closed. He doesn’t move away from him. “How late is it?”

“Uhm, about…” Harley tries to make out the bright red numbers on the screen of the alarm clock without much luck. “It’s about I-can’t-see-shit-without-my-glasses-apparently o’clock.”

“Ugh, you really are as blind as a bat.” Even half-asleep, their banter seems to come naturally.

Lancaster sits up agonizingly slow, eventually giving Harley the chance to retract his arms entirely and roll onto his back. 

Unfortunately, he gravely miscalculated how wide the bed actually is.

Before he has time to hold onto anything sturdy, his hands reach for Lancaster’s shirt, which makes them lose balance and ends with both toppling onto the floor. Harley lets out an undignified yelp as his back meets the carpet, followed by Lancaster landing right on top of him just a split second later. 

They are face-to-face with each other, just mere inches apart. Kissing him would be far too easy. He doesn’t entertain the idea, it would be far too much of an imposition after already springing his issues onto Lancaster for an entire week. The thought is quickly banished.

His mind refocuses on the sharp sting of ribs digging into his stomach. It’s not the pain that startles him, but the realisation that he can trace the outline of each bone, even through multiple layers of skin. Involuntarily, his hands reach for Lancaster’s sides, finding way less than he expected.

Lancaster has always been fairly thin, more bone and skin than anything else, but it has never been this bad. Harley can practically feel every muscle twitch and contract, every bone turn until it’s back in place. It makes sense, but scares him just the same. Abysmal attitude towards food aside, Harley thought Lancaster was at least occasionally having lunch when he wasn’t around. The picture in front of him tells a different story.

“Harley?” Lancaster asks guardedly, gently pushing himself up. “You okay?”

Just like that, all his resolve dissipates. It’s too early to get into a fight he’d never be able to win. “Yeah. Yes, sorry!” He lets him move away. “Great start to the morning, eh?”

“More memorable than most of my morning-afters at uni,” he groans as he pushes himself to his knees, only registering what he said after Harley lets out a bewildered snort.

“Good to know!”

“Wait, that’s not– Stop laughing!” he whines. The colour on his face would put all of Botany’s self-grown tomatoes to shame. 

Harley’s still on his back, chest heaving in a fit of giggles. “You’re ridiculous, did you know that?”

“You’re annoying, did you know that?” Lancaster gives him a light shove with his knee. “And… and you smell like me. Why do you smell like me?” 

Never once in his life did he want an inanimate object to turn into an anomaly and swallow him whole more than he does now. 

“I may have used your shower gel yesterday…” he admits shyly, as if it was a crime punishable by death. “And sleeping in your bed probably also rubbed a lot of your… smell off on me.”

“Gross, please never ever say that again. You genuinely couldn’t have phrased that any worse, could you?” Lancaster cringes, letting his head fall back against the mattress.

“Is that a challenge?”

“No! Harley, I swear to Go–”

“Alright, alright, fine. I’ll spare you the emotional damage.”

“Thank you.”

“For now…”

Lancaster shakes his head, biting back the fondness in his smile.

“Anyways,” Harley drags himself into a sitting position. “Are you, uhm, down for breakfast? No clue what’s left in the pantry, but it can’t hurt to check it out.”

“Go for it. I don’t– I’m not hungry, though.”

He’s trying to preserve the playful conversation, but there’s an audible strain in his voice.

“Not even something light? I’m not saying you have to eat something, but maybe you should at least get a few bites down?” His tone is tentative, light. Broaching the topic was a first, getting it somewhere is something completely different.

“I don’t…” He inspects his fingernails. “I promise I’m fine. You don’t need to go all mother hen on me.”

“Someone has to because you sure as hell aren’t taking care of yourself enough.”

“Harley–”

“Look, I know exactly where this conversation is going because we keep having it over and over again, so just don’t start, okay? I’m not doing this because I don’t trust you to take care of yourself, I’m doing this because you don’t have to do everything on your own. You’re doing this whole ‘untouchable’ thing to justify putting everyone else’s needs above your own, but that’s not healthy. Please let me help you.”

The room falls into an eerie quiet as Lancaster allows himself a moment to mull over the situation. There’s a longer talk to be had at some point, they are both aware of that. Not now, though. 

“You’re not letting this go anytime soon, are you?” 

“Not a chance.”

He sighs. “Alright, fine. I can try.”

Harley, who was entirely prepared for another redundant shouting match, can almost feel his eyes bulging out of their sockets hearing that. “You mean that?”

“Yes. Only because it’s you.”

–

They end up sitting on Lancaster’s bedroom floor, sharing a sleeve of crackers, cream cheese and a whole plate of pre-packaged, sliced apples. Not the most balanced breakfast by nutritional standards, but it does what it’s supposed to do. Harley keeps a watchful eye on Lancaster while they eat, catching every ounce of hesitation or uncertainty. He doesn’t push.

“Thank you, by the way,” Lancaster mutters almost offhandedly, not even looking at him as he speaks.

“Hm?” Harley asks right before he shoves another Ritz cracker loaded with cream cheese into his mouth. It’s on the brink of going stale.

A bright pink spreads over Lancaster’s cheeks as he desperately haggles for the right words to say. “Your… suggestion worked. I don’t think I’ve gotten this much sleep since we got trapped here. It was nice.”

His tone is painfully raw and honest, and Harley knows that the most sensible reaction would be to say something reassuring, something heartfelt. But unfortunately, Harley is anything but sensible.

 “Looks like I earned my keep then, huh?” he jokes, flinching at the way his voice wavers.

“What? Harley– you don't have to ‘earn your keep’. You don’t owe me anything.” Lancaster is quick to reply.

“I didn’t– It was a joke. I guess I’m just happy to see you actually get some sleep. And food!” He thrusts the plate of apple slices over to him. “You’re dangerously close to resembling a functioning human, Lanc.”

“That’s… extremely debatable.”

“Well, thank God I was a Speech and Debate kid in high school. It prepared me for moments like this.”

“Of course, you did Speech and Debate! I fucking knew it!” He grins, a wide, toothy grin that looks entirely too big for his face. “You could talk the quills off a porcupine if you wanted to.”

“At least I wasn’t a theatre kid.”

“I was in one play! And I wasn’t even good!”

“Once a theatre kid, always a theatre kid.”

Lancaster pinches the bridge of his nose in an attempt to hide his grin. “Why do I even associate with you?”

“Because I happen to be a pretty good replacement for a weighted blanket, and you happened to be in desperate need of one.” He tries to play it cool.

“You don’t have to,” he stammers. “Continue this, I mean. You can still take the bed, of course, but I don’t want you to feel force–”

“What if I want to?” The implications hang heavy between them, a tension so thick it could be cut with scissors.

“...okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes, okay. I don’t exactly know what to reply to this,” he laughs awkwardly. “If you’re really okay with it, I’m not gonna argue against it. I can think of worse ways to spend the night.”

“Eh, surely there are only a few things worse than sharing a space with me.” It’s supposed to be a light-hearted joke, but Lancaster responds with a frown – the same frown he gives Harley after smelling alcohol on his breath. It leaves an acidic taste in his mouth.

“Trust me, I know there are worse ways to spend the night,” Lancaster replies solemnly, his teeth worrying his lower lip.

Harley thinks about asking questions. 

In the end, he just lets it go. He seems to let things go more often than not.

“I, uhm, I should probably get going now.” Harley throws a quick glance at the alarm clock. “Before Klein kicks in my door.”

“Don’t even joke about that. You know she totally would jump at the chance of getting to kick in a door.” 

“Oh wait, speaking of Klein, are you going to her anime watch party tonight? Apparently Haldi and her have been fighting over what shows to watch for the entirety of last week.”

“Please tell me they aren’t gonna make us watch Dragon Ball again.” Lancaster scowls. “I can’t take another wave of people from Records joking about ‘kamehame-killing-themselves’. That was a fucking doozy.”

“Kamehame-killing-themselves?” Harley snorts. “How did I not come up with that?”

“I’m surprised it didn’t. Sounds like peak Harley humour.” 

“You’re saying that like it’s an insult.”

“It was meant to be one.”

“Rude,” he says, rolling his shoulders. “So, what about tonight? You in? Even with the looming threat of bad Dragon Ball-related suicide jokes?”

Lancaster's lip twitches into an almost-grin, one he's sorely trying to turn into a glare. “Alright, I'll be there.”

“Hell yeah,” Harley shoots him awkward finger guns before inevitably cringing at himself. “See you tonight then? I probably won’t make it to lunch on time. Love needs my help with… something. She didn’t tell me what exactly it is she needs help with, but if I’m never seen again, I probably ended up as Hiway Robbery’s new chewing toy.”

“You will be dearly missed. I’ll play ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ at your funeral.”

–

“You’re the fucking worst,” Harley gripes as he brushes the dust off his clothes. “That was gross.”

“Oh come on, it wasn’t that bad.” Love is sitting on the sofa across from him, legs crossed, with Dumptruck resting on her knee. His stumpy legs are wrapped around a bright blue massage ball, rocking back and forth like a turtle turned on its back. 

“When you told me that you needed my help, I thought it would be something important. I didn’t think it would involve having to crawl into a vent to look for a toy.” He throws an annoyed glance at the ball in Love’s lap.

“It’s been up there for ages – well, like three days –, Dumptruck couldn’t get it out on his own, and I’m too small to climb up there.” She doesn’t mention that her claustrophobia would probably make crawling into the vent system a living hell.

“You could have just asked Medical for another ball. They really don’t give a shit.”

“But he likes this one! See!” Love points at Dumptruck, who’s still, for the lack of a better word, playing with his newly rescued toy. “And he doesn’t like change. He got that from Ingrid, I think.” She pats one of his legs and giggles when he lets out a seemingly happy squeal in return.

“How do you even know that? It’s not like he’s particularly chatty.”

“Pfft, he’s my son. I know what he likes.”

“He’s an anthropomorphic potato.”

Love gives him a fake gasp, shaking her head in disbelief. “Don’t listen to him, Dumptruck. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

“Who doesn’t know what he’s talking about?” a voice comes up behind them, almost making Harley jump out of his skin.

“Jesus Christ, Raddagher!” he squeals, a hand clutched over his heart. “Why do you keep doing this?”

“It’s funny.” Her eyes are fixed on his, and the ghost of a smile shapes under her mask while she continues to study him. Harley gets a distinct feeling that there’s something they are not telling him.

“What are you so smug about?” Love asks before he has the chance to open his mouth.

“Nothing. I just saw Harley sneaking out of Lancaster’s room this morning,” Raddagher says nonchalantly as she sits down next to Love.

Harley is so caught off guard by the comment that he chokes on his own spit. “Sorry?” he sputters, still coughing,

Love, who looks nearly as affronted as Harley, sits up as straight as an arrow and stares at her partner. “You what? And you're only mentioning that now?”

“It’s not what it looks like– Lanc and I are not– There’s nothing going on between us.” He feels the heat rising to his cheeks, and quickly tries to think of anything other than how he’s acting like a teenage girl with a crush right now.

“Mhm, sureeeeee,” Love grins at him. “Do you leave enough space for God when you sleep together?”

“We’re not sleeping together. Uhm, not in that way at least.” Raddagher’s eyebrows shoot upwards. “He’s just letting me stay in his room until mine isn’t an indoor pool anymore. We’re friends. There’s nothing weird about that.”

“Friends,” Love repeats slowly. 

“Exactly. Friends – just like two of us are friends.”

“Ew.” she crinkles her nose in disgust. “Don’t compare our friendship to whatever you and the shrink have going on. I don’t like you like that.”

Harley sputters. “Like what?”

“You have a fucking crush on that guy. That is totally not comparable to me putting up with you, nerd.”

“I don’t have a crush on Lancaster,” he babbles, nails digging into his thighs.

It’s a lie, of course. His crush on Lancaster has been simmering inside his chest for years now, just waiting to come to its boiling point. Much to his dismay, he would probably reach said point way sooner than he had ever hoped for.

“Oh, you totally do,” she dismisses him. “When I first met you, he was literally the only thing you talked about. It was so annoying.” Love smacks her fist against her chest a few times and clears her throat dramatically before putting on the best Harley impression she can muster. “I have to find Lancaster! What if something happened to him! Lancaster would know how to deal with this! I worry about Lancaster! He–”

“Shut up.” He throws a balled-up napkin at her. “I do not sound like that.”

“You sounded even whinier,” Raddagher adds helpfully.

“That entire homoerotic yearning thing you two had going on back then was genuinely painful to watch.”

“Tough talk coming from you, Love,” Harley replies bitterly.

“At least I actually had the balls to make a move.” Love interlocks her fingers with Raddagher’s. “You’re still being a massive loser about it.”

“Lancaster and I are… good friends. There’s nothing wrong with wanting it to stay that way.” Harley hates this – being pinned down and slowly torn limb from limb until he’s the one conducting his own autopsy. Usually, it was Lancaster’s table he was lying on. “Even if I had a crush on him – which I don’t – I couldn’t just put all that on Lancaster. He doesn’t like me like that, either.”

“Ugh,” she groans, slapping a hand over her face. “That guy lets you stay in his room, sleep in his bed with him, and you still think you’re just very close friends?”

“He only lets me stay in his room because we’re very close friends.” Harley’s skin starts feeling itchy, like he has outgrown it. “I can assure you there are no romantic undertones to this… arrangement.”

“Dude, what are you so afraid of?” Love asks with a striking sincerity that isn’t quite at home with her abrasive expression. “You clearly like him, I don’t give a shit about you denying it, but why don’t you just admit it? You’d rather play this weird cat-and-mouse game instead of telling him that you got it bad.”

“Why do you care?” he snaps. It comes out way harsher than he intended it to. “It’s really none of your business.”

“Why do I care?” She gives him an irritated glare. “News flash: some people want to help their friends when they are acting like miserable assholes. I don’t think it’s fair to pretend we should stay out of this just because you can’t be honest with yourself.”

“I’m perfectly capable of being honest with myself, but you have no idea what being honest with him would cost me.”

“Do you? Because right now it seems like you’re talking out of your ass.” Raddagher begins growing more and more uncomfortable as Love proceeds to argue with him. “I honestly didn’t think your friendship would be able to bounce back from what happened after he attacked you, but somehow it did. Somehow you fucking managed to work it out and came back even more annoying than before. Do you genuinely think something like a crush would make him hate you enough to never speak to you again?”

“Leave it,” Raddagher says gently, putting a hand on Love’s arm. She looks apologetic for a split second until the small hints of anger start seeping back onto her face. 

A pit he doesn’t quite know how to deal with opens in Harley’s stomach, and he’s left clumsily collecting his thoughts before they get swallowed. 

They only want to help, he knows that. And yet there he goes, fucking everything up again. Every good-intentioned piece of advice gets turned over and over until it runs through his fingers like sand. This is what he always does. 

An old dog won’t learn any new tricks before it lays down to die.

“I– sorry. I didn’t mean that,” he sputters as he jumps to his feet. “I should go.”

Without giving them another glance, he’s out of the room and speedwalking in the direction of his office, the pit growing even deeper. 

No matter how much he tries, it only takes one wrong word to set him off. And as soon as that happens, his mind already has one foot out of the door. It’s easy to simply leave things behind and hash them out by wallowing in self-pity on his own. It’s what he does best, really. Sometimes he feels like he’s made a career out of being sorry for himself.

The company of his office and his mind is all he needs to handle his issues. 

A completely healthy way to cope.

He barely registers how much time he spent cooped up in his office until the alarm on his phone goes off. Eight pm (presumably). Time to embarrass himself even further at Klein’s watch party. 

“Catch!” Love yells at him when he opens the door to the rec room, just about giving him enough time to fumble with the small bag of chips she threw at him. A peace offering he doesn’t deserve.

He takes it anyway, sitting down on the empty sofa across from her and Raddagher. Sometimes it’s not as much about deserving things, as it is about simply accepting them.

Haldi and Klein are still arguing about what to watch when they come stumbling into the room. After another twenty minutes, they end up going with some gloomy vampire flick he has never heard of and can’t quite bring himself to focus on when the absence of a certain someone sends him silently spiralling again.

At the beginning of episode three, the sofa cushion dips as Lancaster slips into the empty seat next to Harley. He looks tired but in a weirdly attractive way; tousled hair, a lopsided smile, and his shirtsleeves rolled up enough to show his forearms.

“Hi,” he whispers, leaning closer towards him – a little too close. “What are we watching?”

“Castlevania,” Harley replies, handing him the DVD case. 

“Like the video game?” Lancaster's eyes light up with a sense of excitement he hasn’t had in ages.

“Exactly like the video game.” Their shoulders are pressed together now, faces barely inches apart. “Looks pretty good from what we’ve seen so far, though.”

“God, I used to love that game.” The ghost of a memory – a good one – flashes across his features before he focuses his attention back on Harley. “Sorry for being late. Things took a little longer than expected.”

“Doesn’t matter.  I’m glad you still made it.”

“Me too.”

They fall into a comfortable silence, their eyes glued to the screen in front of them. Or at least that’s where Lancaster is looking at. Harley is looking at him. It seems impossible to look away. He’s bright and warm, and everything someone as touch-starved as Harley craves. 

Lancaster’s presence next to him is reassuring enough to make him drowsy. It doesn’t help that the cushions are soft enough to swallow him whole. Maybe he should close his eyes for a little. A quick twenty-minute catnap has never hurt anyone.

When he opens his eyes again, the entire world seems to have tilted sideways. Momentarily, he falls into a panic, a thousand images of another shift springing to his mind, but when he gradually becomes aware of his surroundings, he finds that it isn’t the world that has tilted, it is just him.

Another episode of some random anime, which he pointedly does not pay attention to, is playing on the TV in front of him. His head rests comfortably in someone’s lap, and a careful hand massages his scalp, while another rests on his waist, fingers occasionally tapping mindless rhythms on his hipbone. It doesn’t take much to know whose lap he’s lying in. 

There’s only one person he’d feel safe enough to fall asleep next to. And there’s probably only one person who would actually let him.

Lancaster’s talking to someone, loud enough for it to echo above the quiet murmuring of the TV. Even with his hands being occupied with doing something completely different, the movements of his fingers still match the flow of his voice.

“... I appreciate that they didn’t stray too far from the game plot, though. Nothing against creative liberty and all, but the game will always stay superior. Sorry not sorry.”

Klein lets out a chuckle, and Harley can hear the springs of the armchair squeak as she leans forward to place her drink on the table. “I honestly didn’t peg you for someone who played Castlevania of all things, Lanc.”

“Oh come on, I was an angsty, gay uni student with my own first apartment when the first few games dropped, of course the premise of a gothic horror video game about vampires appealed to me. What queer person didn’t like vampires during that era?”

“Eh, fair,” she agrees. “Uhm, don’t you wanna wake up your sleeping beauty at some point? He’s been asleep for like what? Two hours?”

Lancaster sighs, pulling his hand away from Harley’s hair. “Almost three. But I probably should wake him up at some point, shouldn’t I? This can’t be good for his back.”

There’s a slight sting climbing up the curve of his spine, but Harley is far from caring about that. He’s still busy trying to wrap his head around how casually Lancaster takes this entire situation, all while his heart is basically going haywire inside his chest.

“I don’t think he minds. He looks pretty content to me,” Klein muses, the smile audible on her lips. “But I think you should get some sleep too. It’s late.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’m just glad to see him get some actual sleep without someone having to force him to. He’s definitely not getting enough.”

“Seems like you two are a match made in heaven, then.”

“The blind leading the blind sounds more like it.” Lancaster chuckles, his whole body buzzing. “But hey, we’re both trying to kick some of our shitty habits and that has to count for something, right?”

“It’s good to see you two talk again. Don’t tell him I said that, but I’m pretty sure he missed you quite a lot back then. And you seemed to be in the same boat.”

“God, you have no idea,” Lancaster mumbles. 

Harley is latching on to every syllable.

“Anyway, we should get going now. Thank you for organising this, Klein. I think we all appreciated it.”

“Anytime.”

The hand on Harley’s waist gives him a gentle squeeze. “Harley, it’s time to sleep in an actual bed.”

Putting on his best act, he plays down the fact that he has been awake for the past few minutes of their conversation. “Ugh, Lancaster?” Harley asks innocently, finally looking up at Lancaster. His eyes are bright, gleaming in the low light like broken pieces of a mirror ball. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean–”

Lancaster shushes him gently. “It’s alright. I don’t mind.” 

He doesn’t let go of Harley even as he scrambles to sit back up again. 

Taking a look around the room, Harley notices that almost all of the others must have already gone to bed. The only people still left are the both of them, Klein still sitting in her armchair, a few people from Records half-asleep on one of the other couches, and an ambiguous pile of Security staff lying on the floor next to the TV. It makes him wonder if Lancaster would have still been here if he hadn’t fallen asleep on his lap.

“Are you okay to stand?” 

“M’fine. It’s okay,” Harley confirms, but doesn’t protest when Lancaster softly pulls him to his feet and leads him to the door with a reassuring hand on his back.

“Good night, boys,” Klein calls. “Sleep tight.”

“You too. Good night, Klein!”

“Night!” Harley adds quickly before they reach the corridor.

The walk to Lancaster’s room is over just as quickly as it began, and in the blink of an eye, Harley’s lying flat on the bed.

“I hope you know that I don’t have enough energy to put on other clothes,” he says, as if he hasn’t been wearing a pair of joggers and a hoodie he accidentally stole from Lancaster this morning. “I’m not getting out of this bed until I absolutely have to.”

“Will you at least move your ass enough, so I can also get in?” Lancaster laughs, now dressed in the same clothes he wore the night before. 

When did he have the time to change? Was Harley really that out of it?

“Fine,” he huffs, leaning back and opening his arms.

That gives Lancaster pause for a moment. It takes some time for his brain to catch up and remind him that this isn’t just some new quirk a delirious Harley has picked up, but rather something they actually agreed upon.

“Come on, my arms are getting heavy.”

With a small grin, Lancaster gives in to Harley’s pull and joins him on the bed. There’s still an underlying sensation of guardedness when he gently drapes his arms around Lancaster’s waist. However, he finds that he strangely doesn’t mind the initial awkwardness. The feeling of his body against Harley’s is almost familiar now, as if he’d known it for ages. 

“Night, Harley. Sleep well,” comes a low whisper from Lancaster.

“G’night, Orion,” he replies unthinkingly.

And if he purposefully moves his hand closer to Lancaster’s in hopes that he might hold it again, that’s really nobody else’s business.

Chapter Text

Harley dreams of drowning way more often than he dreams of falling. He dreams of his lungs filling with water until they are bursting at the seams, until he loses his consciousness, and lets the water drag him down to the bottom of the ocean. His dreams aren’t about falling, they are about sinking and everything that comes after an unnoticed, quiet death somewhere no one will come and look for him. There is no reason to fight any of it, so he just lets it happen. Putrefaction at the hand of something more merciful than the Foundation. 

Recently, though, there has always been a flicker of light right before everything went dark. A small and fickle gleam of sunlight, a hand reaching out. He can’t quite make sense of it. It’s not like he gets much time to dwell either way, his dreams end just like they begin; gasping for a breath.

He wakes up in an empty bed. That wouldn't be something particularly abnormal if the image of Lancaster falling asleep in his arms the night prior wasn't burnt into his mind like a branding. 

Instead of a drowsy Lancaster, he finds the space next to him vacant and cold. The rest of the room proves to be just as lifeless. Harley chances a look at the alarm clock and frowns when he reads the time. 

It’s 03:17 in the morning, and yet he is alone in a bed that isn’t his own. An unwelcome feeling, albeit a familiar one. 

The sound of running water catches his attention. For a split second, he’s horrified, thinking that his bad luck has followed him back to wreak havoc on someone else’s room, but the faint glow emitting from underneath the bathroom door calms his nerves. 

Until harsh sobs cut through the steady stream of water.

Harley is out of bed before his brain can catch up. With his legs still entangled with the duvet cover, he stumbles towards the door. He knocks; once, twice, without an answer.

“Lanc?” he rasps, voice still rough from sleep. The facet is abruptly turned off. There's a wobbly gasp coming from behind the door. “Hey, Lancaster, is everything alright?”

The only response he gets is a slew of garbled noises and heavy breathing.

“Lancaster,” he presses, insistent and riddled with panic. “Are you okay?”

“No– no, I just need… I just need another moment. I’ll be fine,” Lancaster eventually manages to stammer out. 

His hand is already tightly wrapped around the door handle, but he isn’t brave enough to go in. “What’s going on? I’m worried. Can I please come in?”

After what feels like hours, even though it can’t have been more than a few seconds, Lancaster replies, “The door is unlocked.”

Pushing the door open, Harley braces for whatever worst-case scenario he can conjure up in his mind, and yet he isn’t prepared for what he finds.

He’s sitting on the floor with his knees drawn to his chest, drenched from head to toe and shaking uncontrollably. His clothes hang off of his frame as if they were made out of lead, and a few sorry strands of his dark brown hair cling desperately to his face. He isn’t wearing his glasses, so Harley has a full view of his bloodshot and puffy eyes. 

“Shit, Orion! What– what is going on? Are you okay? Do you want me to get Medical? Can I–” He sinks down to his knees next to him, frantically trying to reach out for him, but Lancaster flinches as soon as Harley’s hands touch his shoulder.

“Please don’t,” he whispers, eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t– give me five minutes.”

“Five minutes? Wha– Are you in pain?” His heart is battering against the constraints of his ribcage. 

“I’m okay. I’m fine.” He shakes his head.

Harley laughs in disbelief. “Clearly you’re not! You’re– you’re drenched. You’re shivering, for fuck’s sake. Why won’t you let me help you for once?”

“There’s nothing you can do. I’m not… hurt. You can’t…” he trails off, and without a warning, his breathing starts to grow more frantic, more desperate. “Shit, shit, shit…”

“Hey, woah, Orion, I’m– I’m here.” He bows his head to be face-to-face with Lancaster. “Listen, I… I don’t know how you do this, but I need you to work with me here, okay? Can you try to match my breathing? In through your nose and out through your mouth. You know this.”

A pair of panicked eyes meet his with such dejection it makes his heart ache. This always looked so easy when Lancaster was doing it.

“Alright, in through your nose.” He takes a deep breath in through his nose and watches Lancaster do the same. “And out through your mouth.” 

They repeat that spiel a few times, long enough for Harley’s own anxiety to steadily fade.

“Better?” he asks softly. 

Lancaster nods as his breaths gradually begin to level out. “Sorry, I thought the worst of it was already over. I– thank you, Harley.”

“The worst of it?”

“Panic attack. Cold showers help. Sometimes.” He runs a hand through his wet curls, another drizzle of angry water drops splattering against the tiles.

“You– fuck, you should have woken me up,” he pleads, more desperate than angry. “I could have helped. Or… at least I could have been there for you.”

“You don’t have to.”

“When will you get it through your thick skull that I want to be there for you? I was worried about you. As a matter of fact, I still am. You can’t expect me not to care when you do shit like this.”

“We all have our ways of coping,” Lancaster replies in a daze.

 You should know that best, he doesn’t say.

“And some of those ways are less about coping, and more about pushing shit down we don’t want to deal with.”

“I’m sorry, Harley.” His voice is barely above a whisper, brittle and uncertain. “I have no fucking clue what I’m even doing.” 

“None of us do. But freezing to death on the bathroom floor is not the way to go. Let me take care of you.” Lancaster opens his mouth, but Harley is quicker. “I’ll offer it until you finally accept it.”

“Okay,” he sighs, colour slowly returning to his face. “Uhm, can you maybe…”

“Stay here. I’m getting you some dry clothes.” Harley gently squeezes his shoulder. “And I’m definitely turning up the thermostat in your room because you look like you’re about to turn to ice.”

Lancaster gives him a facsimile of his usual smile as he looks at him scramble back to his feet, both of his legs screaming in protest as he steadies himself.

It feels weird leaving him alone, even if it’s only for a few moments. Seeing Lancaster like this made him breakable, eggshell fragile. Harley is afraid of watching him shatter and being unable to pick up the pieces.

In the space of two minutes, he manages to grab a clean outfit, turn up the room temperature, and have a minor mental breakdown over what the fuck he’s supposed to do. He hands Lancaster the clothes, and then is left to anxiously sit on the bed waiting for him to get dressed.

“You have the fashion sense of a college frat boy,” Lancaster comments as he comes out of the bathroom, donning a pair of washed-out grey sweatpants and a loose graphic tee with a picture of Spock on it. 

“They are your clothes, daisy dukes.”

“You’re never letting me live that down, are you?” he groans, climbing onto the bed beside Harley. 

It’s terribly easy to fall back into their usual teasing. The light-hearted jabs come far simpler than actually having an honest conversation. 

“Absolutely not. I am legally obligated to occasionally take your ego down by a few notches every once in a while.” 

Lancaster snorts. It's the first genuine reaction Haley has gotten from him all night. “Under what law?”

“The one I just made up. Haven’t you heard? That’s how things work ‘round here.” 

“We’re literally in my bedroom. I think I should at least get to have a small say in all of this.”

“Permission denied.” He tries to give him a playful jab in the shoulder, but Lancaster is quicker. His fingers wrap around Harley’s wrist in a half-hearted attempt to block him. 

When he touches him, it’s like taking a plunge into cold water.

“Jesus Christ– your fingers are freezing!” He takes both of Lancaster’s hands into his in an attempt to warm them up.

“Ah.” His face falls, and he quickly pulls his hands away, letting them fall limply into his lap. “The circulation in my hands never really went back to normal after that frostbite.”

“The one you got from that theatre thing? How–” Harley stares at him, eyes wide.

“It’s from sleeping in my car after my dad kicked me out.”

A breathless silence wraps around them. 

Talking about his teenage years has always been a sore spot for Lancaster, and Harley never felt like he was in any position to pry. There’s a carefully assorted gallery of things he knows about him, and it seems that he’s never quite been privy to the important things. 

“I’m– shit, I’m so sorry. You never– I never knew.”

“You couldn’t have. I never told you.” He straightens his back ever so slightly, a telltale sign that he’s about to crawl back into his shell. Vulnerability should come easy to him, and yet every word just adds more mortar to the brick wall he built between them. “I never told anyone.” 

“Orion.” Harley leans closer toward him, the taste of Lancaster’s first name clinging to his lips like syrup. “You know you can talk to me about this? I can’t pretend to understand what happened, but you don’t have to go through everything alone.”

He reaches for his hand again, but this time Lancaster allows it. 

“I don’t want to put this on you. It’s not exactly a fun story.”

“Put it on me. I don’t care. I just want you to talk to me.”

Lancaster bites the inside of his cheek, processing. “Did I ever tell you why my dad kicked me out?”

“Because he’s a dick?”

“True, but not what I meant. I was referring to what happened leading up to him kicking me out.”

“In that case, no.” 

“Well, uhm, a student counsellor outed me behind my back. It sucked. He told my father about my ‘sexual delusions’ and how concerned he was for my social and mental well-being.” He clenches his jaw. “I have no idea how he got to that conclusion because I never really talked to him, but I guess the fact that I dressed pretty tomboyish and didn’t run with the best circle of friends probably gave him some ideas.” 

Lancaster laughs dryly, his eyes focused on the coarse skin of Harley’s knuckles. He mindlessly brushes a thumb over the back of his hand.

The humour is lost on Harley entirely. “That’s…”

“Horrible. I know. I used to blame myself a lot for letting it come so far. Straying from the herd at a Catholic private school wasn’t exactly a recipe for success. In some ways, I have no one but myself to blame for how things turned out. Had I just pushed everything down a few years more–”

“None of that was your fault,” he quickly interrupts him. Self-pity is way less entertaining when it’s Lancaster doing it. “You were barely even an adult. You didn’t deserve any of that.”

“I was sixteen.”

“Sixteen?” Harley sputters, his heart lurching into his stomach. 

He tries to picture himself as a sixteen-year-old; an insufferable know-it-all, who smoked and drank because he thought it made him look tough, and who gave his moms more grief than they deserved. There was no way in hell he would have survived living in his car for God knows how long at that age. Hell, he probably wouldn’t survive it even today.

“It was the night of my sixteenth birthday, actually. He… he was never one for celebrating birthdays, not after my mom died. The most he ever did was buy a ‘birthday’ cake and give me a few dollars to spend on whatever I wanted. I never complained. At least he left me alone most of the time.” His voice breaks ever so slightly, and Harley tries to give his hand a reassuring squeeze. “But that night, he barged into my room at like four in the morning, yelling at me to ‘pack my shit and get out of his fucking house.’ I was absolutely terrified, of course. He acted so damn normal the entire day prior, and then he just…”

Tears dwell in Lancaster’s eyes, and he furiously tries wiping them away, but it’s to no avail. He has already allowed himself to show more vulnerability with Harley than he ever had with anyone else, so acting as if this all doesn’t affect him is entirely futile.

“Do you want me to…” Harley’s hand hesitantly drifts to his shoulder blades, and without even having to finish the question, Lancaster is in his arms, quietly sobbing into his shirt.

On any other day, this would have been the other way around; a drunk Harley crying big, ugly stains into Lancaster’s pristine white lab coat while babbling about whatever he had currently worked himself into a frenzy over. The morning after, Harley would wake up in his bed with a splitting headache, a bitter taste in his mouth, and a few painkillers on his nightstand. He never remembered what Lancaster would tell him the night prior, but he always remembered the feeling of being held, of being cared for.

To him, this exact feeling has Lancaster’s face. 

It’s an unexpected and yet just as inevitable comfort, after everything. Every road they take leads to the same destination, no matter who’s first to reach it.

“I– I don’t think I ever cried as much as I did then.” Lancaster’s muffled voice startles him. Harley can feel his breath ghosting over his neck. “He screamed about how much of a fucking disgrace I was, and I couldn’t even string two coherent sentences together because I still had no idea what was going on. When I, uhm, when I finally managed to ask him why he was doing this, he told me everything.” 

His body is still shaking, and there’s nothing Harley can do to make any of this better. Holding him has to be enough for now.

“Apparently he had known about it for almost two months. Two months of hating every single thing about me, and yet he never said anything until that night. That’s what scared me the most. That he could just– just pretend like everything’s normal. Every day for two entire months. He never let it slip once how much he despised looking at me. I wish I knew how he did it.” 

Harley absent-mindedly runs a hand through Lancaster’s hair, and he leans into it without a question. 

This was easy, the touching. He doesn’t think about what’s between them, all the glaring warning signs that come with the nature of their situation and how they choose to deal with it. For the time being, it’s just them in the little bubble they created, no labels and no judgment.

Sighing, Lancaster shifts. “There’s one line that stuck with me. He told me that if I wanted to be a– a man so bad, I should learn how to act like one. It’s– I think it’s the last thing he said before shutting the door right in my face, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget it.”

“A man? You were a fucking child.” Harley feels like throwing up. None of this felt fair. “He doesn’t get to do that to his own son.”

“He never saw me as his son,” he argues.

“Yeah, because he was too much of a bigot to accept that you’re not the straight Christian altar boy he wanted you to be, but that’s not–”

“No, Ed. He never saw me as his son.”

The room is silent enough to hear the penny drop. 

“Oh,” he responds eloquently, immediately regretting his lack of tact when he feels the man in his arms tense up. 

“I– sorry. I should have told you. We’re friends, we’re sharing a bed– that wasn’t…” Lancaster twists out of his embrace and leans back on the bed, away from Harley, as if he’s bracing for some sort of rejection. 

“What are you talking about?” Harley asks, baffled. “Jesus, who told you that you need to apologise for that? Orion, did you genuinely think I’d have a problem with you being trans?” 

“You wouldn’t be the first one.”

“Fuck all of them, then.” The intensity of his voice startles them both. “You deserve to feel safe. I want you to feel safe.”

“I do. I do feel safe. Ironically, this is probably the safest I’ve felt in years.” Lancaster looks directly at him, eyes soft and honest. “It’s just…”

“The fear never really goes away,” Harley finishes. 

The feeling isn’t an unfamiliar one. The scrutinising looks, the backhanded comments, the random strangers offering to pray for you – he has seen it all. It doesn’t happen all that often anymore, but the unease is still there sometimes.

“... exactly.” Lancaster looks at him with a guarded expression. “Wait, Harley–”

“I’m trans, too.” He gives him a reassuring smile. “The Foundation seems to have an employee archetype.”

Surprisingly, Lancaster lets out a breathy chuckle in response. “Oh my God, I never– I never knew.”

“What are the odds? Two trans people in the same room for more than five minutes? Fox News would have a field day.”

“You are incredibly unserious.”

“Nope, we can be ‘serious’ tomorrow. Come on, you look fucking terrible.” He pats the space next to him and waits for Lancaster to come closer.  “A few hours of actual sleep won’t hurt.” 

Shaking his head, he follows nevertheless. Even though this time, Lancaster doesn’t let him take the initiative. It happens so fast, Harley can’t even wrap his head around it quick enough. 

This time, Lancaster is the one holding him. With his head on Harley’s chest and arms wrapped around his waist, he’s half on top of him now. He wants to ask if this is okay, he should ask if this is okay, but it’s too nice to disturb. It’s nice to be held sometimes. He decides to let it happen for once, loosely draping his arms over Lancaster’s back.

They lie together for a while, not talking, just listening to the other’s breathing, until Lancaster speaks up again. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

He shrugs. “Listening. Not judging me, I guess. It felt appropriate to say after spending the last half hour sobbing into your shoulder.”

“I’m only judging you for being a theatre kid and the way you dress. I could never judge you for any of this.” Harley throws a leg over his. “Your dad is an absolute dick in my books, though.”

Lancaster lets out a mirthless laugh. “I don’t know. Sometimes, I think I would have probably forgiven him for everything, had he just shown an ounce of remorse. He wouldn’t even have needed to apologise. The only thing I wanted was for someone to give a shit about me. Maybe I’m still holding on to that sentiment.”

“I care about you.” The words leave his lips almost involuntarily. “A lot. And I know this won’t undo anything, but I need you to know. God, I’m so sorry, Orion. I never–”

“It’s okay,” he whispers into his shirt.

“None of this is okay.”

Lancaster props his chin up on Harley’s chest, looking up at him intently. “I’m okay now. As okay as I can be.”

“It’s just… how did you survive all of that?”

“I had no other choice,” he replies plainly. “Even after everything, I never wanted to die. I wanted to live. I wanted to see myself grow old, and worry about getting grey hairs and wrinkles. Dying was not an option, I had to live. No matter if I never accomplished anything really worth mentioning. Surviving was enough. Not out of spite or because I wanted to prove myself to anyone. I just really fucking wanted to live.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“So am I.” Lancaster’s head falls back onto his chest again.

Their conversation fades out into comfortable silence. Harley listens to the way his breathing slowly begins to even out. He feels at peace, and yet there’s still something he needs to say, a burning sensation in his lungs he just needs to get rid of.

“Lanc?” he asks, not really expecting an answer.

“Hm?” a tired mumble follows.

“You know I love you, right?” He wants to take the words back as soon as they leave his mouth. 

He swallows. “I– of course, I do. I love you too, buddy.”

“Good,” Harley replies breathlessly. It’s not what he expected and most definitely not what he meant, but there is no world in which opening that conversation right at this moment would have had a positive outcome. He decides to drop it for the night. “Just wanted to make sure you knew. I– good night, Orion.”

“Night, Ed.”

Chapter Text

Waking up alone shouldn't feel this harrowing. He's done it for the better part of this life, and he probably will continue to do so for the rest of it. It isn’t anything new. And yet, he can’t swallow that unwelcome feeling of dread when he opens his eyes to an empty bed.

Harley slowly sits up, his eyes gradually adjusting to the soft orange light the site has repurposed to indicate the start of the morning cycle. The ones in Harley’s office stopped working long before everything started going downhill, but he never really bothered to talk to anyone about it. It didn’t affect his sleep schedule, so why should he care?

For a moment, he stays quiet, just listening. The static hum of the electric lights around him is the only thing he can make out. This time, there is no sound of running water, no rummaging, and no quiet sobs coming from the bathroom. Everything is just depressingly silent, and Lancaster is nowhere to be found.

It’s an unnerving realisation. He doesn’t want to be overbearing, that side of him has never helped anyone. After what he learned the night prior, his worry feels a lot more justified. In their own weird little way, they have always been looking out for each other, two orbiting planets that never get close enough to touch, but would never dare to break away from their routine. In a situation as fragile as theirs, finding comfort in familiarity is the only sense of safety they can get.

Just as Harley is about to spiral any further, the door gets pushed open and a perfectly fine Lancaster walks in. He’s talking to someone through the phone wedged between his shoulders and ears, while simultaneously balancing two bowls and a stack of folders in his arms. When he notices that Harley is awake, he flashes him a brief smile before returning to his conversation.

“Do you think people will go along with it? There’s been a lot of tension between Botany and Records lately, and I don’t want things to, uhm, well, escalate. More than they already have, I mean.” He flops down on the mattress, handing Harley one of the bowls and absent-mindedly setting the second one down on the side table, alongside the folders. “Have you heard that Records intentionally gave them some of those prank office supplies when they asked for replacements? You know– you know what I mean. The ones they use for their version of an April Fools' prank. The keyboards that make those annoying beeping sounds you can’t turn off, the pens that shoot ink right back at you when you press down a little too hard on them, the scented printer paper. And do you want to know what Botany did in return? They replaced the majority of their cleaning supplies with watered-down liquid fertiliser. The awful type.”

There’s a moment of silence as Lancaster listens to what the person on the other line has to say, constantly nodding along as if they could see him. 

“I know– Chappel, I know. And I do like the idea. I’m just saying that we should talk this through with Botany first. To gauge their intentions. Not that I’m accusing them of anything, but even you have to admit that they are a little–” he cuts himself off, eyebrows furrowed. “Okay, yeah. You’re right. We’ll discuss the details tomorrow. You should probably get back to work. Carter knows what they have to do. I gave them a quick run-down earlier, and they seemed to be pretty confident. If– when we get out of here, I’ll write them a glowing letter of recommendation or something… Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow. Wait, before I forget, uhm, thank you again, Chappel. It’s long overdue.”

Lancaster turns off the phone and tosses it off the bed and onto the carpet. He looks concerningly put together considering he was an anxious mess just mere hours ago. “Sorry, Chappel wanted to update me on Botany’s new morale improvement idea, and it dragged on forever.”

“Botany is coming up with morale improvement ideas now? God, somebody shoot me,” Harley groans, and surprisingly, Lancaster huffs out a small chuckle, too.

“Their suggestions aren't always that bad,” he muses. “They are just… very clearly only meant for them most of the time. And that's not what we're doing this for.”

“What did they suggest this time? Cooking classes with poisonous plants?”

Lancaster smiles, the subtle wrinkles at the side of his eyes becoming pronounced enough to be visible. Harley had never really noticed them before. It's not that he wasn't paying attention, they simply were a part of Lancaster that never seemed to be particularly worth mentioning. After their talk the night prior, he fell asleep with the feeling that he never quite looked at him properly. 

There are grey streaks in his hair, soft silver strands sticking out from his brown curls like a sore thumb. Wrinkles accentuate the lines of his face, and the freckles on his cheeks look almost washed out. The image of a young Lancaster springs to Harley’s mind; a clumsy, introverted psychologist with ill-fitting clothes and awkward smiles. Someone who was deeply uncomfortable with existing outside his own space. Now, his awkwardness is still there – he has never been able to shake it off entirely – but he has managed to grow into it. 

Growing older suits him.

God, Harley is majorly screwed.

“I can put it in their feedback box,” Lancaster offers sarcastically, an endearing glint in his eyes. “But no, it’s not a bad idea at all, to be honest. It’s– it’s almost cute .”

“Cute?” Harley snorts. “How?”

He hesitates. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

“I will promise no such thing.”

“They want everyone to adopt a plant and help it grow. I think they’ve been working on establishing a point system to track whose plants grow the best, or something. It’s– don’t laugh ! It’s a, well, it’s a cute idea.”

“Alright, alright, enough Botany talk,” Harley deflects, attention shifting back to the bowl in his hand. “So, what were you up to this morning? I was… wondering where you went off to.”

Catching the shift in tone, Lancaster straightens his back. “Ah, yeah, I didn’t want to wake you. You probably didn’t get much sleep after last night…” He looks away, his cheeks flushed. “I needed to talk to Chappel and picked up some paperwork on the way back. I didn’t think it would take this long, to be honest.”

The comment elicits a frown forming on Harley’s face. “Don’t you think you deserve a break every once in a while? You already spend enough time in your office. Taking paperwork back to your room feels a bit excessive.”

He is surprised to hear Lancaster let out a breathy chuckle in response. “We really do act like an old married couple sometimes, have you noticed that?”

“ Pardon? ” Harley sputters, startled by the curveball he was just hit with.

“Oh!” Lancaster blanches. “I didn’t mean– ah, sorry, that must have sounded incredibly weird coming out of nowhere. It’s just that, well, Klein made a joke about how we act like we’ve been married for fifty years when she noticed that you fell asleep on my shoulder yesterday, and I thought it was kinda… uhm, funny? Considering we’ve practically been sharing a bed for the good half of a week and stuff.” He rolls his shoulders uncomfortably and quickly looks anywhere but at Harley. “Yeah, I mean, it’s just a silly thing to notice, sorry. Anyway, I actually do plan on taking a break. Not a big one, just for today, I guess.”

“And how exactly does bringing your work where you sleep equal to taking a break?” Harley replies, mentally still hung up on the married couple comment.

“I’m taking a break from sessions today. One of our interns is taking my office to do some, erm, practice sessions. We’re not calling them that officially, don’t worry,” he quickly adds.  “And me, well, I guess I’m catching up on some paperwork.” 

Harley has the urge to argue how paperwork is still work, and that Lancaster should take a proper break without thinking about his job for once, but he knows better than that. Cancelling sessions has always been one of Lancaster’s biggest peeves – the man could be close to passing out and still feel uneasy about disappointing a patient – so him talking about dropping an entire day’s worth of sessions seems to be at least a tiny step in the right direction.

“I do listen to you sometimes, you know,” he fills the silence between them, leaning forward to nudge Harley’s shoulder with his. They are close, almost face-to-face, and he can smell the scent of shitty instant coffee and mint pastilles on Lancaster’s breath. Neither of them drinks coffee regularly, but ever since Psychology’s hidden Red Bull stash got confiscated, Lancaster had to find a different way to keep himself sane. 

“Do you now?” Harley teases, realising way too late how dangerously close he gets to crossing the line from simple banter to something way more complex. Something he shouldn’t – couldn’t – think about.

“You’re Head of the Comms Department for a reason,” he counters. “That wistful, dulcet voice thing you got going on is only an added bonus.”

Choking on his own spit, Harley falls into an incredibly awkward coughing fit, with Lancaster gingerly thumping his back and stammering out apologies. “God, sorry, that– I’m not, uhm, not awake enough to have a normal conversation. You do have a nice voice, though. I just didn’t mean to–”

“It’s– it’s fine,” Harley manages to croak out between his coughs and subdued laughter. “You’re fine– I just wasn’t prepared for you to hit me with the wistful and dulcet voice thing. ”

“Oh fuck off,” Lancaster blushes, lips curling into a sheepish grin. “It was a compliment .”

“Do you compliment every man you meet by calling their voices dreamy, or is that reserved for me?” He feels a surprising surge of boldness rushing to his head. 

Lancaster, visibly perplexed by the sudden turn of their conversation, haggles for the right words to say. “I– I did not call your voice dreamy.”

“Yeah, you just called it wistful and dulcet,” he smirks. “Totally normal thing to say.”

“It is,” Lancaster protests, an incredulous expression on his face. “You’re just being awfully smug over a compliment.”

“I hate you so bad right now.”

“But you love me enough to bring me… breakfast?” For the first time since Lancaster handed him the bowl, Harley takes a proper look at its contents. “What exactly is this?”

“Oatmeal, I think.” Lancaster shrugs, bending over slightly to retrieve his own bowl from the side table.

“You… think? That’s reassuring, thanks!” Harley carefully runs his spoon through the thick beige mass. It’s not exactly the most appetising thing he’s seen in the last few weeks, but it most certainly isn’t the worst.

“Yeah, I met Love in the kitchen, had a small chat, and then she just shoved two bowls in my hands and told me to say good morning to you?” He settles on the mattress next to Harley, crossing his legs and clumsily balancing the bowl in his lap. “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, though!” he amends. “Raddagher ate some of it too, and I doubt Love would mess with their food.”

“Great,” Harley mutters, taking a questionably big spoonful of the alleged oatmeal and shovelling it in his mouth.

Against all odds, it’s surprisingly edible. Not good in any way, but probably better than anything he could have put together with what they still had left before the new reset. One may think they would have gotten the hang of managing their resources by now, but in reality, they were all just as hopeless as the day they first got locked in here. They had simply gotten better at feigning security.

“This isn’t… too bad,” Lancaster says, still chewing. “Could have used a lot less sugar, though.”

“Emphasis on a lot less,” Harley agrees. “So, what’s your plan for today, then? Just paperwork? Alone in your room?”

“Paperwork, lunch with Klein, and then more paperwork. A dream, really,” he muses sarcastically, nodding his head along empathetically.

“Since when are you having lunch with Klein?”

Harley’s tone brings a small grin to Lancaster’s lips. “There’s no reason to be jealous. It’s just a one-time thing.”

“That’s what they all say. And then you’re stuck with a divorce and full custody of the kids.”

“I’m sure our hypothetical kids would be alright with me skipping us eating lunch together one time.” He playfully rolls his eyes. “Besides, Klein’s only reason for inviting me to eat lunch with her is probably to ask about how you’ve been doing, so I wouldn’t worry.”

“Why would she do that?” Harley laughs, although he doesn’t really find the humour in the situation. “She knows I can take care of myself, right?”

“I think you moving into my room for the week gave her the perfect reason to check in on us. Mutual babysitting, if you will.” 

Scoffing, Harley takes another big bite of the oatmeal, his teeth crunching on the granulated pieces of sugar. It’s disgusting, but he swallows it anyway. “There’s no such thing as mutual babysitting. That’s ridiculous.”

“Well, call it taking care of each other, then. If that makes you happier.”

“Since when are you the one who’s just okay with stuff like that? Aren’t you the one who keeps claiming he doesn’t need people to check in on him?” Harley counters.

“I think those lines kinda blurred after crying into your shoulder and telling you all about my childhood trauma for a solid hour yesterday.” It’s evident that Lancaster isn’t as okay with what happened the night before as he claims to be, but Harley doesn’t mention it. “And it’s not like anyone’s asking me to spy on you. I mean, Love and Raddagher are looking out for each other, and Klein and Alves got their weird little mutual reassurance thing going on, so why shouldn’t we? It’s just a buddy system with Klein as a nosy bystander.”

“So,” Harley is desperate to shift the tone of the conversation to something less sincere again. “Anything else on your agenda today other than paperwork and cheating on me?”

Lancaster snorts. “No, just bureaucracy and infidelity.”

–

After breakfast, they both hang around each other for an awfully long amount of time, unwilling to burst the bubble of amicable bickering. It’s only when Lancaster points out that he should probably start getting some actual work done, that Harley hesitantly leaves for his office. 

He’s aware that his crush on Lancaster is beyond salvageable now, even classifying it as a crush feels juvenile and wrong. It’s something more. Something that burrowed itself so deep in his chest that he thinks he’ll never be able to free himself of the feeling. And in some ways, he didn’t really have the desire to do so.

Loving Lancaster was nice. It was a warm bed to return to, a soothing hand in his hair, a tight embrace after a long day. With all his flaws, he was still better than anything Harley could have dreamed up. 

Perhaps it looks a little silly to others, pining after a man who’s so close and yet so far away. Subjecting himself to sharing a bed with said man every night most certainly wasn’t one of his brightest moments, but there’s also a specific kind of sweetness to things that are so close but forever out of reach. Starving at a full table was an art in itself.

Banishing all Lancaster-related thoughts, he tries to put his mind back to his work. It’s dull, to say the least. And utterly fucking boring, to say the most. It’s the same bland stacks of paper he looks over every day. Transcripts, cryptic symbols that all spell out the same inconclusive bullshit, and mindless lists Klein makes him proofread for some reason. Being a Communications Officer without anyone to communicate with is a particularly nasty curse he wouldn’t wish on anyone else. Well, he wouldn’t wish his situation on anyone else to begin with, but that’s beside the point.

He spends four whole hours working on all the minuscule tasks that have accumulated on his desk during the week. And he probably would have spent another two hours doing so if the site broadcasting system hadn’t suddenly decided to make itself known.

It starts off with a small wave of white noise, the soft hum of a connection ready to be established. Then the sound moves over to a low cackling. 

At first, Harley thinks it’s just a common radio interference. He got those a lot during the first few resets. Usually, those are just his machinery trying and failing to connect back to the main channel. But now, the signal appears steady, intentional.

That’s when he hears it, the fickle, almost inaudible beeping of his comms pager. It’s a simple pattern, morse code, exactly like the one he learned at uni and perfected during his brief time in the army. 

Dr. Harley, do you copy?

Dr. Harley, do you copy?

Dr. Harley, do you copy?

It hits him then that this isn’t someone from Site-107, this is an external communication attempt. Someone outside is trying to talk to them. Someone outside found them.

Right as he is about to check the signal again, a loud rush of static spouts from his walkie. 

“Harley?” Lancaster’s distorted voice crackles through the room. “Harley? Are you alright? What’s– what’s going on? Over.” He sounds shaky, on the verge of being genuinely terrified.

“Lancaster?” He rushes to grab his walkie-talkie, knocking over his microphone in the process. “Lanc, what’s wrong? Over.”

The static returns and Harley can hear clattering and crashing in the background. “Shit– Harley, something’s– something’s terribly wrong. The– the temperature in the entire wing dropped, Chappel paged me that the same happened in the Psychology wing, and now–” A loud bang cuts him off, followed by panicked footsteps on hollow metal. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Lancaster gasps. “Harley, I– God, I have no idea what’s happening. The ceiling in my room just came down. Shit.”

“What?” Harley stammers. “What do you– the ceiling? Lancaster, what are you talking about? Are you okay? I don’t understand–”

There’s a grating screech coming from outside his office, and Harley can barely hold on to his chair before the ground starts shaking. 

Lancaster’s voice comes back into focus, but the radio signal is brittle, and the static makes him sound robotic. “Harley– Ed , I– I think we’re resetting.”

“Resetting? We can’t– It’s not time. There’s no way this is a reset.”

“It’s either a reset or something way worse . Ed, where are you? Please tell me you’re in your office.” He’s panting by now, steps growing quicker with every word he punches out.

“I’m in my office, but things are getting bad other here, too. Where are you? I can try and–”

The building around him groans and shudders as if it were in the middle of setting a dislocated joint. A reverberating rumbling thrums through the air, and Harley gets harshly flung onto the floor while the whole world around him comes crumbling down.

“Ed? Ed, are you okay? God, please–” His signal cuts out, and for a painstakingly long moment, the room is drenched in agonising silence. Even the groaning limbs of the building seemed to settle briefly to drown Harley in the oppressive quiet.

“– can you hear me?” The noises rush back in, and he realises that he’s still flat on his back, his head mere inches away from the shelf that collapsed onto the ground with him. His body is screaming at him to stay where he is, a mixture of self-preservation and suicidal ideation, but his head is urging him to move, even if it hurts. 

With shaky hands, he scrambles to sit up, reaching for the walkie-talkie as quickly as he can. “I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine,” he repeats with shallow breaths. He is decidedly not fine, but he’s alive, and that has to be enough for now.

“Thank God,” Lancaster sighs. “I’m, fuck, I don’t know where I am. I think I’m somewhere close to Records? Everything’s chaos and I don’t– I don’t know what to do. Or where to go. The doors to the Psychology wing are locked, and I can’t go anywhere else.”

“Okay, okay, stay where you are. I’m coming down to get you. My office is falling apart, too. We’ll– we’ll figure out a way together–”

“No, Ed, please stay where you are. It’s way worse out here, trust me.”

“What? No, I can’t just– What about you?” 

Lancaster’s response gets overwhelmed by the blaring sound of alarms going off in Harley’s office.

“What the fuck was that?” is the only thing he can make out through the walkie.

“Shit, this– this is not a reset,” he heaves, back pressed against the wall and struggling to stay focused. “We’re going down with the ship.”

“We’re– oh fuck. Ed, what do we–”

“Orion, I love you,” Harley blurts out, unthinkingly. His mind is a vast pool of nothingness, and the only things he can force himself to think about are that he doesn’t want to die and that he is most definitely in love with Lancaster.

“And you’re telling me that now?” Lancaster almost laughs. “We’re– we’re pretty much dead, and you think this is the perfect moment for a love confession?”

Dread settles over him as he realises that this might very well be their last conversation, the last thing they will remember before they get swallowed by the never-satiated mouth of the Foundation. Confessing his true feelings seems like the worst mistake he could have made now.

“Orion–”

“Do you actually mean it, or are you just saying this because we’re both gonna be dead soon?” Lancaster asks flatly, his voice low and hushed.

“I’m– I guess I’m saying this because I love you, and it took being put face-to-face with my imminent mortality for me to be brave enough to tell you.”

There’s a sharp intake of breath coming from Lancaster, bordering close to something like a sob. “We’re both cowards, Ed. I love you too. Even though you’re a dramatic asshole who thinks it’s appropriate to tell someone you love them moments before dying.”

This, despite himself, makes Harley laugh, too. It’s a ridiculous feeling, the exhilarating rush of knowing that Lancaster loves him back in the face of certain death. He may never get to taste what being loved by him feels like, but just knowing that all his pining wasn’t as foolish as he imagines it to be, leaves him with the type of euphoria that he used to only find at the bottom of a bottle of whisky.

“I’m sorry for not telling you sooner, I should have–”

“Hey,” Lancaster whispers. “It’s alright. It’s not your fault. I wish we could have had this talk in person instead of over–”

“Lancaster!” A second voice from Lancaster’s end of the line cuts him off, and the static of the radio grows again.

“Orion? What’s–”

“Lancaster! Get away! Move!” Harley recognises that voice. It’s Klein, her tone harsh and just as scared. 

A bellowing shriek follows, and the ground shifts again. 

“What the fu–”

The last thing Harley hears before the line breaks off completely is a gunshot and the sound of a body slumping against the wall.

“No, no, no, no, what–” The words barely leave his lips before his room starts to tilt on its axis, this time more than ever. For a moment, he is locked in a surreal state of disassociation as the furniture shatters and crashes around him. 

And there’s nothing he can do but watch and wait for his turn.